


why's it only you i'm thinking of

by veterization



Category: Nancy Drew (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-03 00:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12737727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veterization/pseuds/veterization
Summary: In which Hugh starts falling for the detective who's staying at Blackmoor to find out what's wrong with Linda.





	why's it only you i'm thinking of

**Author's Note:**

> The product of playing Curse of Blackmoor approximately 5000 times, having a filthy mind, and nurturing a long-running obsession of Nancy/Men With Accents. I also LOVE Hugh Penvellyn's voice (tbh I completely ignore the portrait of him in the Great Hall because no, no, it does not do justice to that absolutely delectable voice), and so of course this was inevitable.
> 
> This story is a canon divergence off the actual game, in which Nancy and Hugh have a lot more phone conversations and the ending is drastically different as well. There isn't outright infidelity in this story, although if that sort of thing isn't your cup of tea, this story might not be for you.
> 
> Also, yes, I am very surprised that there is no sex in the story. It honestly just DID NOT SEEM TO FIT, because when I started writing this, it became unintentionally very Hugh-centric. It was weirdly enjoyable just to delve into a character we got very little of from the game aside from the two-dimensional basics and then build up an entire background for them.
> 
> Title is from Niall Horan's song Too Much To Ask.

Hugh wishes he would feel worse about not being at Blackmoor, but with the way things are going at home—ridiculous to even call it that, what with how supremely uncomfortable it is there right now—he can't even bring himself to feel badly about lying about Rome. He's not in Rome, although everybody was quick to believe him. He just—couldn't stand being in that house anymore. Being around Linda.

He's made a mess of things, he knows that. He shouldn't have succumbed to all that pressure, all his friends telling him that Jane needs a motherly figure, something constant, something supportive, all his family bugging him for updates on when he and Linda are tying the knot already. He hadn't been ready, and he's not even sure Jane was ready, despite her sudden overuse of the word _mummy_ , and now in an effort to make things better he's made them all worse. Linda's miserable at Blackmoor, and he's not sure that'll ever change. Her mother keeps saying that it will once Hugh is around more, that Linda's mood will swing upwards again, but with the way she is on the phone with him lately—he's just not convinced he'll make even the slightest difference, is all.

Yes, Linda's miserable and won't even come out from behind a curtain and yells at Hugh whenever given the chance. This is supposed to be the bloody newlywed period and instead, this is what he gets, a bride who refuses to talk to him or so much as look him in the eye.

When he thinks about it that way, he feels a little more justified for pretending to go away on business.

\--

Linda's new favorite hobby is hanging up on people. It used to be jogging and taking photos and reading books, and now it's driving Hugh up the wall and keeping him there for as long as possible, as if threatening him with the pointy ends of a rake while he tries to find purchase on the ceiling.

He goes to a pub in east Essex to get away and finds a hotel to take solace in. He knows no one here will blab on him to anyone at home. His aunt never leaves the conservatory anyway and Jane is working hard on Ethel's rigorous curriculum and Linda—well, Linda won't even leave her bed, let alone the manor.

He wishes he _were_ away in Italy. It's easy to get lost in Italy—emotionally, as it were. He could throw himself into work and pasta and learning Italian during dinners with his colleagues. Here in England, he can think of little but how fucked he is.

The thing is—he just keeps thinking he made a horrible mistake. The feeling is getting more and more pronounced the more he tries to ignore it. He got married too soon. And he might've even chosen the wrong woman to marry in the first place. And if things don't get better soon—

But it must. It will, because it must. He can't fail yet another marriage. He can't put Jane through all that change again. He can hardly handle it all himself, and he's a grown man; she's just a child who also happens to be dealing with school and puberty and an entirely new family dynamic. And besides, maybe that girl coming from the US will fix this. He's not sure how that's possible, but maybe she'll understand things he just isn't. He doesn't seem to be understanding much these days.

\--

Linda's mother must have him on speed dial. He's absolutely convinced. She seems to call ten thousand times a day, always with the same frantic, urgent tone of voice that makes Hugh immediately assume something has turned horribly ugly over at Blackmoor, and doesn't say goodbye until she's given Hugh every little update she's gathered, no matter how mundane, and squeezed Hugh for the same.

“You've spoken to her, haven't you?” she presses.

“Of course,” Hugh assures her. Spoken _at_ her is a better descriptor, though, considering how positive he is that she doesn't actually listen to him. Steamrolling over all his words and yelling at him for his insensitivity is the more accurate way to describe it. “Although it hasn't exactly been easy to talk to her lately.”

Mrs. Petrov sighs, her worry bleeding through the phone. “I know. Of course I know. How many times a day are you calling?”

“At least once,” Hugh says, deciding to count the times he tries but Linda doesn't pick up at all.

“This is just. Just _so_ unlike her,” Mrs. Petrov says, sighing again, heavier this time. “She used to be so full of life and energy and happiness!”

The _it's your fault she's not like that anymore_ rests on Hugh’s shoulders like sticks of dynamite. He knows she didn't say it, but he certainly feels it's been implied. That England did this to her. That Blackmoor did this to her. Hugh is grateful enough that Mrs. Petrov likes him and has quite taken to him as a son-in-law, but she's also made it unfailingly clear that she doesn't like the manor. When she first visited to help Linda get settled, she walked around the place with an unmoving expression of a hybrid of disgust and confusion and shock that houses decorated this way still existed. Hugh has to admit, that didn't sit all that comfortably with him. It rather prickled him instead, to watch his mother-in-law regard a home he was quite proud of with such open derision.

“Yes, well. I wish I was there to help Linda,” Hugh lies. “But work has just—”

“I know, and I know you can't just abandon your job,” she interjects. “I'm just glad that Nancy’s coming.”

“Nancy. Right.” The American girl. He had almost forgotten about her. “How do you know her again?”

“She's one of my neighbors. Her and her father are really such nice people—he's a lawyer and she's a detective.”

A detective. Just what they haven't yet tried, Hugh supposes. Although at this point he'd be happy to have psychics and priests and mystical healers come in and help if they thought they could.

“You should give Linda a call when we hang up,” she suggests to him. “I know you can't be with her, but I'm sure she'd love to hear your voice. Know that you're thinking about her.”

Hugh can say, without a doubt, that she wouldn't love that, and she won't. He's given up on the magical hope that he'll wake up one morning and everything will be fine with her, back to normal, all pleasantries reinstated, but Mrs. Petrov clearly hasn't yet. It's either absurdly optimistic or refreshingly positive. Hugh hasn't quite decided his opinion on that as of now.

“You will, won't you?” Mrs. Petrov pushes. “Call her?”

“Of course,” Hugh says.

So he does, as promised. He's not sure why he bothers, but he feels disturbingly duty-bound by his frantic mother-in-law. Maybe it's because she sounds more and more frazzled each time she calls, and if he's not careful to reassure her enough, she'll just decide to move into Blackmoor and handle the situation herself.

“Good evening, darling,” he says once Linda picks up, something to test the mood.

Linda's loud huff—in lieu of a hello—tells him everything he needs to gauge the situation.

“Still in Rome?” she asks. There's an odd sound coming through the phone, almost as if she's drumming her fingernails somewhere.

“Yes, and I'm sorry about that, you know I am.” The guilt hardly even washes over him this time. He wonders what that means about his current state of mind. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, don't act like you care,” she says, and there they go—Hugh can feel it, can predict it like a weatherman sensing a storm—right down Linda’s tantrum. “If you did, you'd be here.”

He refrains from mentioning that he doubts that his presence would really make that much of a difference. After all, he hasn't been allowed to see Linda through anything but the curtain strung up around the bed in weeks.

“You know that's not true,” he says. “Just tell me how you're doing. How's Jane? How's Ethel?”

“You want to know how Ethel’s doing?”

“I'm interested, yes.”

“You're _interested?_ ” she asks coldly.

“Not like that, if that's what you're thinking,” Hugh says, wondering where on earth that even came from. He's hardly—he's barely even spoken to Ethel aside from the occasional conversations about Jane's education, and he could have sworn that he remembers Linda's jealousy always being a sweet, slight thing, not this ludicrous roaring monster. “Ethel is Jane's tutor, and I’m married to you, in case you've forgotten—”

“Oh, forget it. Some kind of husband you're turning out to be.”

“Linda,” he says, stunned. And really, he shouldn't be stunned, because this has become normal for them, this verbal swordplay that’s starting to hit in all the worst places. “Honestly, think rationally. All these ideas you've built up in your head—”

“It's not all in my head!” she interrupts.

“I just believe—”

“Don't bother!”

The line beeps a moment later, buzzing like an angry bee in his ear. She's hung up on him. It isn't the first time, but it somehow always stings when she does.

\--

Nancy Drew calls him a few hours later. From “across the pond,” she says, and for some reason, Hugh finds that oddly endearing. She doesn't sound as young as he expected over the phone, but rather very… assertive. Like a competent, together adult. It makes sense then why Mrs. Petrov sent her overseas to solve everything. She certainly seems capable, even just from what Hugh is perceiving on the phone.

She asks him about everything. The house. His and Linda’s marriage. Jane. His aunt. She's very thorough, a trait she may’ve picked up from her attorney father. Hugh quite likes her. It feels, comfortingly, like he has someone with a logical head on her shoulders on his side at the manor.

“This is a very busy time for me,” he tells her, not dishonestly. “But… I’d quite like it if you checked in as often as you can.”

“I can do that,” Nancy promises. “Goodbye, Mr. Penvellyn.”

“Hugh,” he cuts in. “Please. Call me Hugh.”

\--

Amid all this, Hugh briefly, in idle passing, entertains the idea of having an affair. It's a ridiculous thought, something that just strikes him when he is sitting at a bar and watches a woman in a low-cut top walk by. It's the kind of shirt that fully intends to grab every nearby male by the nostrils just to get their attention, and Hugh isn't immune to the allure.

He could do it, he thinks as the woman settles down at a table, and he most likely wouldn't even get caught. Most men probably would in the situation he's in. He's hardly reaping in newlywed cheer and glory. His wife vacillates between ignoring him and shouting at him, no other options available, and that kind of behavior would drive most people away into a pair of loving, tempting arms.

It also hits him that he's never been allowed the experience of a quick, exciting fling. A one-off with a gorgeous girl whom he doesn't ask for a number later. He was smitten with Renee when he was incredibly young, and she was his first love, a love that carried all the way through his twenties until it suddenly went from burning brightly to burning out, like an overused candle. And then Jane was in the picture, and lads’ night at the pub scouting for a good time or matchmaking websites just didn't seem responsible or even practical, let alone realistic, and he went from one serious relationship to the next when he found Linda.

He sort of regrets that, really. Having never just let himself go wild, if only for the experience. For years, the neighbor kids would mock him, ridicule him as a posh boy with a silver spoon in his mouth for growing up in such a massive home with such proper relatives and an Amazonian parrot as a pet, and for just as many years, if not more, he ached to prove them wrong. His father would've hated him just for thinking such things, for even considering that the dropouts and the slackers seemed to be having infinitely more fun than he was. He would hate him for his current thoughts too, for letting his eyes drift around the clientele at the bar and cataloguing the skin and the lips and the hair of all the women.

Then again, Hugh never could really make things right for his father anyway. And he had definitely tried.

There had been one time, actually, when he was in Paris, when it did nearly happen. He was there on business at the time, and his fellow suits liked to wind down after a long day’s work, find a nice pub in the area and just destress. Friday night in Paris was as beautiful as it was enticing, begging Hugh to never give in to the temptation of sleeping for fear of missing out on a stunning moment. His colleagues were clearly gripped by the same beliefs, because they'd stay up drinking French Cabernets much too late every weekend, waking up dry-mouthed in their hotel rooms the next morning. One particular night, the bar they'd chosen had been busy, overwhelmed with patronage from a hen-do, and Hugh had found himself squeezed in at the bar next to a remarkable woman with long curled hair and nearly uncovered shoulders, only thin straps of satin fabric holding up her loose dress. 

The woman had smiled at him three times before he finally said hello, at which point she leaned her entire body into his space, apologized for how close she was crammed against him, and asked him in a teasing French accent what he was doing here. They had talked for a while. He had even paid for some of her drinks. It hadn’t quite yet meandered into dangerous territory, but it also very obviously could have. Hugh had taken the high road and not done anything to encourage the evening to take a more salacious turn. It just wasn’t the type of man he was. He would love to say he was too loyal, but chances are, he just was too cowardly to even entertain such an idea.

If the same woman were sat in front of him now, silky hair draped over her collarbones and delicate laugh rich in the air, he's not sure he would make the same decision again.

What if Nancy were here, he wonders. What if she was sat next to him, speaking to him in that same enticing, intelligent voice that he hears over the phone? When he closes his eyes, he can nearly hear it. He knows essentially nothing about her—and perhaps that’s the appeal—but he knows that she’s the type of person to fly all the way to England from America just to solve a mystery that may or may not be unsolvable. That, and that she’s the most refreshingly level-headed, logical person he’s had the pleasure of speaking on the phone with in weeks.

He wonders what Nancy looks like. Is she tall? Dark-haired? Blue-eyed? Smooth complexion?

He wants to meet her, but he desperately doesn’t want to go to Blackmoor, although he knows that the two desires don’t work harmoniously together. One of the other has to give, and Hugh will choose his imagination over being physically at home and enduring all of Linda’s frigidity. How someone can maintain a cold shoulder for so long so consistently without freezing themselves over in the process is beyond Hugh, but he has no interest in solving that particular mystery.

The case of the snowman wife who refuses to melt. It’s not a story he would want to read, although being part of it is admittedly worse.

\--

Outside of the hotel he’s been staying in, the work office is something of a sanctuary for him during all this. Even working with belligerent politicians and mending international broken fences as a diplomat feels drama-free in comparison to what's happening at home, lying in wait for him.

He doesn’t mind his work. He actually quite enjoys it, especially being the communicator between so many different countries, cultures, people, and being able to learn and travel so much in the process. He had explained as much to Linda when they were still dating, and she had seemed fully supportive of his profession at the time, including his limited schedule and necessity for sporadic trips. Of course all that understanding had flown out the window—left behind in the airport, perhaps—once they had moved to Blackmoor. There had even been a moment when Linda had accused him of marrying her just to secure a permanent babysitter for Jane, which had, despite being utterly wrong, still unseated Hugh horribly. He spent an entire train ride through Italy critiquing his own fatherhood, wondering if he was ruining his daughter’s life by being so hardly present, only to be snapped out of his funk by a video call conference he was being rung into.

It gets tiring, Linda repeatedly drawing bullets and aiming for the sternum, leaving Hugh to examine the wounds and wonder if he deserved them. It doesn’t help that they’re getting increasingly personal, as if Linda is intending to hurt. At least at work, he can fix the problems thrown on his desk, and he can revel in those accomplishments. At home, he can do little but twiddle his thumbs and hope for a miracle.

Or put his hope in Nancy, he supposes. He doesn’t know anything about her aside from Mrs. Petrov’s glowing recommendation of her, although he has to admit, yesterday’s phone call made him hope, as he scarcely allowed himself to before. She seems smart. Capable. The questions she asked came from a place of reason. That, or perhaps he’s convincing himself of this out of sheer desperation. If Nancy doesn’t come up with any answers, he can already imagine Linda’s mother calling him begging him to get approval from the Vatican for a demonic exorcism or something equally farfetched.

As if reading his thoughts, the Blackmoor number pops up on his phone as a call rings in. He takes it, half-terrified and half-preemptively-exhausted of what’s to come.

“Mr. Penvellyn?”

“Ah, Nancy,” he says, getting to his feet, and quite relieved it’s her. “How was your first night at Blackmoor?”

“...weird,” is what she ends up saying. “Do you ever hear… strange chanting in the middle of the night?”

“No,” he says. “You heard chanting? In the manor?”

“I did. Around three in the morning.”

“ _Three in the morning?_ ” he repeats, dumbfounded. “Did you see anything?”

“Nothing. By the time I got up, they had stopped.”

“They?”

“It wasn't just one person,” she explains. 

“Say, you are still planning on staying at the manor, aren't you?” Hugh asks, hopeful. “I hope you weren't frightened off.”

“More like the opposite,” Nancy says, her voice suddenly a determined grumble. “If something strange is going on here, I want to figure out what it is.”

Good lord, she's dedicated. Hugh can't help but wonder where she even gets all this courage from, because when he was eighteen, he certainly wasn't confident enough to do much of anything, much less investigate eerie chanting in the dead of night. 

“And do you have any ideas as of yet?”

Nancy pauses, then swings the conversation over elsewhere. “What do you know about the beast of Blackmoor?”

“Pure medieval fiction. The product of little minds in an era of dangerously little education. I have forbidden Ethel to so much as mention it to Jane. Where did you hear about it?”

“The man doing research in the library? Nigel Mookerjee?”

Ah. That bespectacled nutter. “Another one of my aunt's ideas. The fact that the Penvellyns have never had a book written about them has been a perpetual source of social embarrassment for her.”

“Do you know much about him?”

“He was recommended by a friend. And he has assured us over and over that the book he publishes will cast only a positive light upon the Penvellyn name. Although come to think of it, I never have seen that promise in writing.” He stops. “Why do you ask about the beast?”

“Just… something I ran into here at Blackmoor.”

“I see. Well, it’s nothing more than a gossip-ridden myth. I hope you’re not the type to believe in such drivel.”

“What? Of course not,” Nancy says, almost indignantly. “Although—”

“What?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Nancy, please.” He waits, expecting to hear that Nancy suspects the beast of Blackmoor to be behind the mysterious chanting. Hugh has heard many rumors of beasts, but never anything about their musical inclinations in the dead of night. “If it might be relevant…”

Nancy sighs. “I saw this pair of… red eyes when I walked up to the house when I arrived. And then something said my name. Hissed it, really.”

Hugh tries to wrap his head around this. He sinks back into his office chair. “Pardon?” he says. “How tired were you?”

“Not tired enough to make this up,” Nancy insists.

“What happened then?”

“Nothing. Mrs. Drake opened the door and by the time I looked back around, the eyes were gone,” Nancy says. “So do you believe me?”

“I have no choice, do I? I wasn’t there to disprove it, and with things at the manor… being the way they are, I suppose I have to consider every option.” He pinches the bridge of his nose, taking in a deep rattling breath. “As much as I loathe to do so.”

“Trust me, I don’t like it either,” Nancy says. “But I’m sure there’s a logical explanation. There always is, and I intend to find it. I just thought I should tell you exactly what I saw.”

“Yes, and I appreciate that. As much as I appreciate your tenacity.”

“Really?”

“Of course. I dare say most people in your position would’ve already left, completely frightened off.”

“I’m not most people.”

Hugh smiles, and wonders if it’s clear across the phone. “I can see that.”

\--

Daily calls from Nancy start becoming a routine. She checks in frequently, giving Hugh updates not just on Linda's situation, but also his aunt and his daughter, even the parrot, on occasion. Turns out Mrs. Drake is as devoted to her plants as ever and Jane is desperately lonely and pushing board games on both the willing and unwilling alike. And Linda—well, Linda hasn’t changed.

“Did you know that Jane's mother is in Rome?” Nancy says one day, throwing Hugh off his guard.

“Renee is in Rome too?” he asks. He didn't know. Of course he didn't know. Renee doesn't regularly email him itineraries or send him copies of her schedule. He got used to not knowing anything about Renee’s life anymore a long time ago. “I had no idea. Well, thank you for the warning. Thankfully it's a big city.”

“You're not meeting up with her, are you?” Nancy asks. She sounds a little funny.

“What?” Hugh doubts that Renee would even agree to meet up with him for a coffee, much less nurture an out-of-town affair with him, which he's fairly certain is what Nancy is implying. “No, of course I'm not. We don't keep in touch anymore.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” He rearranges the phone against his ear. “I’m not seeing her, and I’m not in love with her, and certainly not to a point of wanting to be with her so badly that I’m emotionally torturing my wife to try and scare her off.”

Nancy’s quiet on her end. Hugh obviously can’t be sure, but the silence sounds a little bashful, which he can’t say he isn’t glad for. That accusation, subtle as it may’ve been, definitely had a bite to it.

“I’m sorry,” Nancy says, a little sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to say that’s what was happening. It was just a surprise, that’s all.”

“How did you even find out, anyway?”

“There’s a postcard in Jane’s room that I happened to see. From her mother.”

Hugh hadn’t actually realized that Jane was sending postcards to and fro with her mother. Perhaps that’s where all his stamps keep sneaking off to.

“Yes, well,” he says. “I haven’t seen her, and I’m not intending to either.”

“All right,” Nancy says, and it’s mollifying to Hugh that it sounds like she believes him. She also sounds almost—relieved. “Do you mind if I ask you what happened?”

“With Renee?”

“Yeah. Mrs. Drake told me that you two were married really young, but… she didn’t say much else.”

“Yes, well, my aunt has nailed it on the head,” Hugh admits. “I was indeed young and in obedience of my every impulse and I thought I was in love, although looking back, I hardly think I was. I was also fervently interested in annoying my father, and a quick marriage to a carefree woman seemed like the best way to do that. I didn’t have the best relationship with him, you see, and that tends to shape a man unfavorably sometimes.”

“I’m sorry,” Nancy says.

“No, it’s quite all right. If anything, it’s encouraged me to not follow his example and have the same subpar relationship with my own child. Even though I do travel a lot, I do my best to be the best father I can to Jane.” He realizes, rather worryingly, that he quite cares about what Nancy thinks of him as a father, especially after all the comments from Linda that have been burrowing in his gut. “It would definitely be a fear of mine to treat her as coldly as he often did me.”

“I’m pretty sure that’ll never happen. She loves you a lot,” Nancy says. She sounds so sure of what she’s saying that Hugh would be a fool not to believe her. “You’re doing a great job.”

“I—well, thank you, Nancy.”

“You’re welcome.”

“No, my gratitude is really quite sincere.” He scratches his jaw, wondering if it’s appropriate to share this, share any of this. Nancy’s not his therapist, for God’s sake. “You have to understand, Linda’s been—well, as you know, she’s been quite cruel lately, and she’s had a few goes at my failure with fatherhood. To hear it reaffirmed that I’m not, actually, completely ruining my child is… a pleasant thing to know. I realize we don’t know each other that well, but I appreciate your opinion nonetheless.”

Nancy is silent on her end. Perhaps he really has overstepped his bounds here. Even though she’s here to help Linda, that hardly means that she’s interested in all of their dirty laundry. And maybe she’s on Linda’s side, which wouldn’t surprise him, what with her being sent by Linda’s mother, and she’s taken to believing whatever foul testimonies of Hugh’s character Linda has been telling her. What _has_ Linda been telling her?

“Nancy? I hope I haven’t made you uncomfortable.”

“No!” Nancy says quickly. “I just… hadn’t realized that she was doing that to you.”

“Yes, well. It’s been very difficult for all of us. I’m not saying I’m worse off than her, the poor thing, but yes, we’ve all suffered through this in some way.”

“I’ll figure this out,” Nancy promises, voice hardened. She seems more determined than ever, which pulls a strange affection out of Hugh that plucks at his insides in a way he’s not sure is appropriate. Whatever that emotion inside of himself right now is, he probably shouldn’t be encouraging it. “I promise I’ll get to the bottom of it.”

“I believe you,” Hugh says, and he’s surprised to realize he’s being honest, not just hopeful.

\--

“All I'm saying,” Hugh’s aunt says, voice crisp, “is that she's not improving. I don't think Nancy has a grasp on the situation.”

Her voice echoes a bit through the receiver. She must be in the conservatory. It's easy deductive reasoning, though; she's always in the conservatory. Hugh balances his phone between his ear and shoulder while he shuffles through some papers. One of them is a list of some of the countries that have requested meetings recently. On the bottom, in his boss’ scribble, are the words _Paris in two weeks—you in?_ Hugh immediately writes _yes_ underneath.

“I admit I didn't have very high hopes,” he says. “Linda has been—well, it wouldn't surprise me if nothing any of us do will make any difference.”

“I know,” Mrs. Drake says, voice getting ever and ever crisper. Like a cool fall day. “Hugh, I know you probably don't want to hear this, but—”

“Then don't,” Hugh says, switching ears. He knows what's coming already, and doesn't need to hear it verbalized in his aunt’s judgmental tone. “I'm sorry, but now just isn't the time.”

“Very well,” she says. “But at this rate, you will have to make time eventually. She's not doing well. She's starting to demand…” She clears her throat, clearly perturbed. “...very strange diets.”

“Pardon?”

“She's requesting food that's… not on the food pyramid, exactly, if I may speak lightly.”

Hugh's head is pounding. She's already taken refuge behind a curtain and isn't speaking rationally to anyone and has trouble sleeping, and what now? Is she eating all the rabbits off the moors?

He knows that his aunt doesn't quite care for Linda. It's not a hatred, but there's most certainly distrust, which ultimately, Hugh thinks might be her concern for him manifesting itself as criticism of Linda. She's told him many a time that she thinks he and Renee were foolish to marry so young, and while she's held her tongue this time around, he knows that she thinks he and Linda were foolish to marry so fast. In fact, one of his cousins even asked if this was all a favor Hugh was doing to Linda to get her a Visa into the EU.

“Nancy’s certainly trying,” Mrs. Drake amends. “She's been asking everybody dozens of questions. She seems convinced, if you ask me, that somebody isn't telling the truth.”

“Do you think she's right?”

“I don't know,” Mrs. Drake says. She exhales loudly. “How could I possibly? The entire situation is perplexing enough as it is. Hugh, I urge you to consider cutting this business trip short to attend to the… disrepair your family is falling in at home.”

More than ever, Hugh doesn’t want to go home. Fine diplomat he is, he thinks dryly, turning a blind eye to the pathetic irony that he’s remarkably good at mediating between mega businesses and even countries but is absolutely horrible at it when it involves personal matters. Home is seeing Linda again and listening to her scream at him through a curtain, and home is Jane whining about missing all her favorite TV programs from New York, and home is Nancy, who Hugh feels more conflicted about than ever. He finds himself being more and more impressed with her each time they talk, more and more enraptured by her bravery and her ingenuity and her voice. He can only imagine how much his… _interest_ in her will skyrocket if he actually sees her in person. Over the phone, things are at least safe to a certain degree.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he says.

\--

“I caught your aunt hanging a charm over Linda’s door this morning,” Nancy divulges to Hugh on the phone while he takes his lunch break.

“You caught my aunt doing _what?_ ”

“It had all these runes on it. She got a little flustered when I asked her what it was.”

Hugh leans back in his chair, astounded. His aunt must _really_ think Nancy’s incapable of making a difference at this point if she’s resorting to hanging old charms in doorways. Is everyone at Blackmoor going slowly insane? First Linda’s diet takes a drastic turn and now Mrs. Drake is hanging mystical charms everywhere to ward off negative energies? Perhaps he ought to check the house for carbon monoxide leaks.

“Did she?” Hugh asks. “I must admit, I can hardly imagine stiff Aunt Leticia being the one behind all this. It seems awfully nefarious for a woman who spends her time babying a giant carnivorous plant. Which, incidentally, she could easily feed Linda to if she really wanted her gone.”

“I think you’re right. I’m not going to cross her off my suspect list, but I think it’s unlikely she’s the culprit here.”

“Suspect list?” Hugh repeats. “Oh, yes, I had almost forgotten that you’ve done this before.”

“Done what?”

“Solve a mystery, that is. Linda’s mother mentioned something about a horse when describing your latest case to me. And possibly thieves?”

“Oh, right. It was a phantom horse.”

“A what?”

“Well, someone was _pretending_ it was, anyway. It’s a little complicated.”

Hugh can’t help the laughter that pushes its way out of his throat. Her life is an enigma, a series of adventures that boggles his mind. She’s so young, and still so accomplished. “You’re going to have to tell me that entire story once I make it out to Blackmoor,” he says.

“You think you’ll be able come back to England soon?”

A wave of guilt swarms toward Hugh, licking up his body like an incoming tide, and he takes a slow breath in. He’s not sure what’s more disconcerting, just how many people are persuaded of this lie or that Hugh feels worse about deceiving Nancy than he does Linda. Perhaps that’s because Nancy would actually speak to him if he were to visit Blackmoor; Linda would rarely acknowledge his presence at all.

“I’m definitely hoping to,” he says. “I’m very eager to meet you, I must say.”

“I can say the same,” Nancy says, and she sounds almost—almost _shy_. It’s so uncharacteristic of her that Hugh almost has to think— “I just hope I can live up to your expectations!”

“You will,” Hugh says immediately. Perhaps he should’ve waited a beat before blurting that out so surely.

\--

Things take a very sharp turn for the worse on Thursday morning.

Hugh is just getting out of a call with the Italian government when he notices that he’s missed a couple calls from Nancy, and that one of them is even accompanied by a frantic voicemail that he hurries to play once he’s found a stairwell to duck into for a moment of privacy. It’s Nancy, voice uncharacteristically unnerved, asking Hugh to call her as soon as he can because she unearthed new, alarming information. He hasn’t even reached the end of the voicemail before he’s already calling her back, horrified at what possibly could’ve happened that she’s reached out to him like this, even before Mrs. Petrov could get her hands on him.

“Nancy, what’s wrong?” he asks once she picks up, gut twisting into itself as the worst of possibilities run through his mind. It isn’t all that comforting that he realizes he’s agonizing over Nancy being hurt more than he was considering Linda’s well-being, although he rationalizes that by telling himself that Linda’s situation couldn’t possibly take further nosedives at this point anyway.

“Hugh, I've seen her,” Nancy tells him.

“What?”

“I've seen Linda. Through a peephole. I saw her hand.”

“Through a—what?” Hugh asks, confused. She sounds panicked. It's not an emotion Hugh’s been hearing come out of Nancy’s mouth all that often, and it shoots alarm through him like lightning. “Nancy. What exactly did you see?”

“She's—she’s growing hair. Lots of it.”

“Excuse me?”

“It almost looked like _fur_. It was all over her hand, Hugh. And it went down to her wrist as well.”

This can't—this is borderline mad. What is Nancy trying to suggest here, that Linda's in hiding out of embarrassment because she's started sprouting copious amounts of body hair out of nowhere, or something much more sinister? He knows all the rumors, of course, of curses and beasts and other complete medieval fiction that's enslaved the misinformed heads of too many men already, and even the idea of entertaining it seems insane, even after the conversations he and Nancy have been having about the beast. It just isn’t possible.

“Nancy,” he says, desperate to keep his voice steady. “What exactly are you telling me?”

“I don’t know,” Nancy says, which is admittedly more consoling than her telling him, however doubtfully, that Linda’s turning into a hairy beast. It’s reassuring to know that Nancy isn’t the type to fall prey to that absurdity, even if she has been confronted with some pretty disturbing evidence. “But I’ve been speaking to this doctor—an expert, actually—and she thinks all of this must be psychological.”

“Psychological?”

“Yeah. That Linda’s… been suggested into becoming… something.”

Nancy sounds like she’s cringing through each word. It’s possible that this case is more than she bargained for, possibly opening up more doors for her than she anticipated. Hugh can empathize with her horror; if Linda really is being psychologically mutilated to the point of it altering her physical form, this is much more serious than he thought. Not that hiding behind a curtain twenty-four-seven wasn’t already concerning, but it’s still a massive step down from being coerced into thinking she’s a hairy monster.

“Is this—are we talking about the Blackmoor beast here? Does Linda think she’s becoming the Blackmoor beast?”

There’s a long, uncomfortable silence.

“Nancy?” Hugh presses.

“I think yes,” Nancy finally admits. “She found this passageway—she was messing with a gargoyle one day—”

“What? I expressly told her to _not_ go exploring the passageways!”

“I know. She told me. I think her guilt at doing it anyway was one of the reasons she didn’t tell you.”

That takes the wind out of his sails. He shuts his mouth, silencing the rest of his rant, and rubs his temples. His hand suddenly feels painfully cramped around the phone, head tight with tension, and he wills himself to relax. It’s just difficult for him to take in this new information that he had been completely kept in the dark of before, even though he knows perfectly well why. These new details shine a different light on the situation. He had been beating himself up ruthlessly for Linda’s condition before, convinced that it had all been his doing, not being enough of a doting husband, being away too much, forcing her to adapt too soon to a new house, but now some of the blame can be shifted off his shoulders and onto Linda. She hadn’t listened, and she had poked around the passageways, and good lord, what if she would’ve been hurt in the process? Those decrepit old halls are dark and incredibly old, and it’s a miracle that a beam or a chunk of ceiling didn’t collapse on her head.

“She went into one and found something she thought was a curse at the end of it. I saw it myself. I have to admit, it was pretty chilling,” Nancy continues.

“And that’s all it took?”

“Not quite. She had a note waiting for her in her room after she came back. It had the same curse on it. She thinks someone left it for her.”

A practical joke, maybe. A bad joke, admittedly, one that he can hardly imagine anyone at Blackmoor playing, but surely nothing more. “And now she thinks she’s the subject of an ancient curse?” Hugh repeats, dumbfounded. “This is utterly ridiculous.”

“Maybe, but you have to admit, the surroundings don’t exactly… look like somewhere where a curse _wouldn’t_ exist.”

“And you’ve seen this curse as well? You’ve also been in the passageways?” At Nancy’s silence, he groans. “Nancy, it’s dangerous in there. If you were to get hurt—”

“I’m being careful, Mr. Penvellyn.”

“It still wouldn’t set right with me if something were to happen to you,” he says. “And it’s still Hugh.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me, I promise.”

He thinks about what his aunt said, how she urged him to cut his business trip short. If any of them knew—if they had even the faintest clue where he really was—he’d certainly have no excuse. Any minute now Nancy will ask the same thing of him and he’s terrified he won’t be able to say no to her.

It’s going to crumble down around him, he can feel it. He might as well tell her. He might as well own up to what he’s done. It’s almost worrying just how much he almost _wants_ to give in and confess it all to her.

“Nancy,” he says, frightened of how wracked his own voice sounds for a moment. “I know this doesn't reflect well on me, but, well. I feel like I've made a mistake.”

“A mistake,” Nancy repeats.

_I'm not in Rome_ , he wants to admit. _I just can't come home to her. Maybe there's a part of me that wants her to get fed up and leave._

“I don't…” He takes a breath in, something to steady himself with. “I don't think Linda and I were ready to be married.”

The other end of the line is sinisterly silent, if not thick with judgment. He imagines the conclusions Nancy must be leaping to right now, that he's the one making Linda so irritable as to scare her away, too cowardly to ask for a divorce himself, and feels like he's just admitted too much.

“Oh,” is what Nancy finally says. “Are you—”

“No,” Hugh says immediately. Wherever that question was going, no. He's not giving up on her so fast, not when he's going to be the family laughingstock if he can't handle a marriage that hasn't even been around long enough to see a fiscal year complete itself. It was already bad enough when he separated from Renee, all the sighs and consoling pats and unsolicited opinions from people who thought he got married too young, far too young, and how bad would it be the second time around? Could the sighs possibly get louder?

“Oh,” Nancy says again.

“You must think I'm a horrible person.”

“No!”

“It's just that neither one of us fully seemed to grasp what we were getting into, and it of course doesn't help that there's a third person involved to consider, a _child_ , no less.”

Nancy’s silent for a pregnant pause. Then, sounding as if she’s wincing, she says, “And you made Linda think she’s the Blackmoor beast to try and get rid of her?”

“What?” Hugh says, scandalized. “No, I would never—absolutely not! Would you really expect such a thing of me?”

“I’m sorry, but I had to ask. It almost sounding like you were confessing.”

“I wasn’t,” Hugh says. “Not to that, anyway. Nancy, I’m—not at Blackmoor.”

“Well, I’ve realized that.”

“No, that’s not what I mean.” He takes a deep breath. Is he really about to admit this to her? Is he about to do this? It’s like a key has turned inside him, and now he’s determined to be nothing but forthcoming with her, be honest in all that he divulges. “I’m not in Rome. I’m still in Essex. I just needed desperately to get away from Linda for a bit.”

He waits for a response that doesn’t come. He even double checks the phone to make sure Nancy hasn’t hung up on him.

“I realize that puts me in an extremely unflattering light,” Hugh says, feeling compelled to keep talking, perhaps find a way to explain. “And paints me as a liar, and a coward to boot. But you have to understand, the last few weeks have been a living nightmare. We’re supposed to be newlyweds, but she’s been treating me quite abhorrently—we haven’t had a single call in ages that hasn’t ended in her screaming at me!”

“Hugh,” Nancy says, and she doesn’t sound as judgmental as Hugh feared, just… uneasy. “Maybe you should be telling her all of this.”

“You think I haven’t attempted to do so? And that she hasn’t bothered to listen to one word of it?” 

It’s possible that all of this is too much to be grasped by an eighteen-year-old who has no idea what divorce is like or how hard relationships can be. Hugh tries to imagine what a boyfriend of Nancy’s would look like, and he comes away with fragmented images of what is definitely a competitive specimen of man, with firm muscles and sunkissed hair and hands that are good for holding. And no divorces. He’s probably not ever been divorced.

“I apologize for the… raised intensity in my tone,” Hugh murmurs. “I’m not intentionally scolding you, especially not when I’m aware that I’m in the wrong here.”

“Linda hasn’t made it easy for you,” Nancy says, and that—now _that_ sounds sympathetic, the accusatory tint in her voice gone. “But if you feel you made a mistake, you have to talk about it.”

“In this state, it would hardly do any good.”

“I’m getting close, Hugh,” Nancy tells him. “I know I am.”

Hugh clutches the phone, hands feeling too warm. It’s starting to become apparent to him that it doesn’t matter if Nancy magically manages to fix Linda or not; he doesn’t want to go home and see her either way. He doesn’t want to face their marriage, and he doesn’t want to fix it. It’s admittedly awful that he’s coming to this epiphany while he’s on the phone with Nancy, his brain trying to make sense of this, to—crazily enough—hope that Linda’s had enough too.

“I will come back to Blackmoor,” he promises, heart heavy. “I know it’s selfish of me to demand to be ready before doing so, but I want—” He exhales carefully. “I want the chance to do this right. Put my words together properly.”

“All right.”

He wishes he could see her face, read her expression. It’s getting exponentially harder not having her physically in front of him, but rather only a mental image he’s begun to torture and tease himself with in equal measure. He knows that everything is coming to a head here, that he can no longer avoid going back home.

“Nancy? Can you do me a favor?” he says. “Please—don’t tell Linda about any of this.”

“Okay. I can do that.”

“Thank you,” he says. He’s lost count of the number of times he’s thanked her over the last few days.

\--

It's his aunt who calls him once it's all over. She sounds incredibly harried, voice high as it always is when she's indignant and panicked, and tells Hugh that Nancy and Jane just stumbled out of a passageway and Nancy just saved Jane from suffocation somehow and Jane’s also admitted to everything, _everything_ , and it takes Hugh a little bit for it to sink in just how awful this all is. Basically, he's a bigger failure than he even imagined.

His daughter. His sweet, tiny, adorable daughter with a thirst for knowledge and an Easy Bake oven to feed the family parrot and a wonderful sense of humor, had it in her to mentally and psychologically derail his wife. It certainly makes him reevaluate all those jabs Linda threw at him about being a bad father all over again. He doesn't even know where to start.

With Linda, he supposes. He knows he owes her an apology, for more reasons than one. For what she's been through. For putting her through it. For thinking he was doing the right thing when he married her and moved her overseas with him. For what he's done with—

No, he hasn't done anything with Nancy. Not exactly. Thinking about it doesn't count.

Even after everything is out on the table, Linda won't open the curtain for him. Still not. Not even when he knows why she's even back there.

“Darling,” he says, because he should really—he should really try. “Linda, open the curtain. Please.”

She doesn't. He thinks about reaching out and touching it, trying fiercely to somehow feel connected to Linda through it. He doesn't, however, and settles for watching her shadow move around behind the thin fabric.

“I'm sorry,” he says, feeling like that really isn't enough. “I know that none of this has been easy for you.”

“None of this has been easy for me,” Linda repeats, almost disbelievingly.

“Yes.”

“Hugh,” she says. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through here?”

“Well, yes, I—”

“In your house?”

Whatever happened to _our_ house? This was supposed to be theirs. A home to be built and nurtured together, and now—well, Hugh isn't deaf to the signals.

“That child,” Linda says, voice detached, cold, and it takes Hugh a minute to realize she's referring to Jane, “did everything she could to get me out.”

He nods, all the while knowing she can't see him through the curtain. He has the dreadful feeling that he's supposed to be picking a side right now, choose whom to defend, and it shouldn't have to be like that. They're supposed to be one cohesive team, not this dysfunctional mess they've become.

“I know,” Hugh says. God, does he know. It's a miracle Linda isn't dead. It's a miracle she'll recuperate from all of Jane’s meddling. Some kids go for buckets of water over the door or leaving lizards around the place, but his daughter, his disgustingly clever daughter, found it appropriate to spike Linda's lotion with hair growth serum and crush allergy pills into her food. When did his child even get so cunning? Was it when he wasn't looking, away on a business trip? “But she's sorry. She feels awfully guilty.”

Linda's silence suggests that she's happy about that. Her figure shifts behind the curtain.

“She doesn't want anything to do with me,” she says. “I get kids who can't—can't wrap their head around having a step-mother, but this—” She sucks in a deep breath. “This was insane.”

“I know,” Hugh says again.

“And if she tried so hard, maybe I should just go,” Linda says. “Maybe we should give her what she wants.”

“She's twelve, Linda,” Hugh reminds her. “She'd get used to it eventually.”

“Maybe that's not good enough for me,” Linda snaps. The sound of it—the shrill edge her voice takes on—is familiar to Hugh as of recently. “Maybe it shouldn't be this difficult.”

Hugh is at a loss for words at that. Truth is, he's not sure if she's right or not. Everyone says such different things about love, from it being hard work to it being effortless to it being an anchor to cling onto. He should know more, really, because he's been in love before, and besides, his whole bloody job is bringing people together, and yet he can't even do that in his own marriage.

“I think we should take some time apart,” Linda finally says when Hugh doesn't say anything. She sighs, the sound so heavy it probably travels through the whole house. “I just don't feel like I belong here. I miss America.”

Vaguely, Hugh thinks he should be fighting harder for her. “If you think that's best,” he says.

“We sprung this all on Jane too fast. And after everything that's happened, my mother will want to see that I'm all right.”

“Fine.”

“I know that it'll complicate your plans,” Linda continues. “With the whole six month habitation clause—”

“I don't care about that,” Hugh breaks in, suddenly annoyed. It doesn't matter. It's not like his aunt will ever really shut him out. She'll let him live here, clause or not. It would, after all, still be half his. “If you think you should go, you should. I don't want to be the one who stands in your way.”

“I think I should go,” Linda says. It feels, oddly, like she's talking to a stranger. Her voice is almost apathetic.

He realizes, almost like a hollow clock is ringing inside of himself, that his marriage is ending. That’s what he’s experiencing right now. Linda wants to leave, and he doesn’t really want to convince her to stay, and that can’t spell success in their future as a couple.

“All right,” he agrees, his mouth making words of its own accord. “Then you should.”

\--

He leaves the room feeling strangely numb all over once that conversation’s over. Like he's been submerged in ice water for too long and now he's waiting for feeling to come back to his body, because it's starting to hit him that his new marriage really is over, just about as quickly as it began.

God, what on earth will people say this time?

When he reaches the staircase, he sees Nancy standing at the bottom of it. There's an expression on her face that instantly makes Hugh wonder if she overheard any of that conversation, and he's seized with an automatic shame at the idea of that being true.

“Nancy,” he says, stopping. He gestures vaguely to the hallway. “Have you been there long?”

She shakes her head, but there's guilt on her face.

“I suppose you heard, then,” he says. The numbness still hasn't faded. It's starting to feel like he's floating out of the earth's atmosphere, actually. “It's all over.”

“You and Linda?”

He breathes out. “Me and Linda.”

He walks down the stairs, grabbing the railing with white knuckles as he goes. His feelings have become something of a conflicted whirlwind. A very real part of him wanted this to end, to have never gotten married at all, and yet another part of him was desperate to not give up so fast, to try and make it work even though every molecule inside himself was screaming at him that it wouldn't. It wouldn't work. It had almost been more comfortable to be stuck in the in-between, back when he was unsure what was to come. This is why he hadn’t wanted to come to Blackmoor.

“I'm sorry,” Nancy finally says. “I never would've come if I—”

He shakes his head, cutting her off. “No, no, no, don't be ridiculous,” he says. “It wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. If anything, you gave her back to herself.”

A glum silence descends, broken only by the chiming of the clock ringing through the hall. Finally, Nancy says, “Maybe it's not all over. Maybe she just needs time to adjust.”

“She's going back to New York,” Hugh says. “She's done trying to adjust.”

He's not sure she ever really tried, but he doesn't feel like it's fair to point fingers considering that his daughter was essentially poisoning Linda while running around pretending that the beast of Blackmoor had returned, and there comes that awful feeling in the pit of his stomach, the one that always grips him tight whenever he thinks about what exactly Jane felt it necessary to do.

“You could go with her,” Nancy suggests.

“She doesn't want me to,” Hugh says. _And I'm not sure I want that either,_ he thinks.

He lets himself look at Nancy, really look, look like he didn’t when he had first arrived, too caught up in the rush of trying to grasp the story, of checking to see if Jane was all right. She seems uncomfortable. Probably because she's trying to figure out how to fix it. It's what she does, after all, it's what she came here to do, but this can't be fixed.

“Well, maybe she just needs some time to relax. And then you two could—”

“Nancy,” he cuts in, first sharp and then instantly weary. “It's all right. You did what you came here to do, and you did it well. You don't have to do any more.”

He glances at her, caught again by just how much of a beautiful young lady she is. The thought is quickly followed by a sting of guilt; he can hardly believe that he's breaking up his marriage over a girl half his age who came here to figure out if his wife was becoming a beast or not. Wait, no, that's not right, and that's _not_ what happened—Nancy didn't break up his marriage, and this isn't some sort of sordid affair. He isn't that type of man. At least—he never was.

“Well!” he says, more loudly than he has to. “That's that. I don't want to keep you here longer than necessary.” He catches her eye. “Not that you're not allowed to stay as long as you'd like. Please—don't let me make you feel rushed.”

“No, you're right,” Nancy says. “I should be going home again soon.”

No, no, Hugh doesn't want that. Of course she can go, of course Hugh knew that she would, but—he just wants her to stay a little bit longer. Something about her is so uncontrollably lovely. So smart, so accomplished, so intrepid.

“Don't think you have to hurry,” he says. He takes a step closer, emboldened by the shift in mood, but the sound of his brogues on the tile floor is so resounding it nearly shifts it back again. “You have… been a light in a very dark house.”

She looks at him, but doesn't say anything. Hugh suspects it's modesty that's holding her back from accepting his compliment. That, or she… wasn't expecting it.

He doesn't even realize just how close he's standing to her, head ducked toward her with an intimacy that feels close to stunningly electric, until the front door creaks open and distracts him. It's Nigel Mookerjee, the tosser. Looking like he just stumbled on an addition to spice up his tell-all that's even more scandalous than the Blackmoor beast.

Hugh takes a step back, but surely the damage is done by now.

“Can I help you?” he calls out, suddenly feeling a little hot on the cheeks.

“No, no, sorry to disturb,” Nigel says. “Forgot my laptop. Terribly sorry.”

He runs off to the library, leaving Hugh feeling unpleasantly itchy all over. Nancy’s frowning.

“You shouldn't trust him,” she says.

“Is that so?”

“I looked through the files on his computer. He's looking to add whatever gossip he can find on your family to spice up his book,” she says.

“My god, you're quite astute, aren't you?”

She laughs. “Most people just say nosy.”

“Well, yes, I suppose that too.”

“I needed to make sure he wasn't the one responsible for everything,” Nancy says. “And it's not like I didn't find evidence. He seemed to be considering dredging up proof that the Blackmoor Beast existed so his book could be more exciting.”

“He what?” Hugh says, incredulous. “You can't be serious. He promised me he wouldn't focus on any of that—that utter nonsense. I should have made him sign contracts. What sort of diplomat am I?”

“A trusting one?” Nancy suggests. “Don't worry. I'm too trusting for my own good too.”

“Really? Something tells me you're actually quite good at seeing through people’s intentions.”

“You'd be surprised,” she mutters. “People fool me all the time. I couldn't see through Jane at all.”

“Oh, but she ought to not count. After all, she's a child. Who would suspect such an innocent face?”

“A fool?” Nancy offers.

Hugh smiles. It takes him a moment to realize this is one of the first times in a long time that he's been given cause to smile. It feels almost stiff on his face at first, like an unused muscle stretching out after a while.

\--

Hugh decides Jane needs a break from Blackmoor, too. It wasn't all about Linda, after all. Jane confides in him in tears that she hates the house too, that no one ever talks to her except for Ethel and that the walls are always so cold and that she misses New York and all the friends she had at school there, and Hugh can't stand to see her heartbroken, tear-stained face any longer knowing that he's the cause of it, that he's done a royally awful job of making his entire family miserable.

He sends her off to Rome to be with Renee. It isn't ideal, because Renee is busy so often and Jane’s Italian is nonexistent, but Jane seems happy with the idea nonetheless. It's so painfully clear how much she misses her mother that Hugh feels like an idiot for not having seen it before.

“You can come back to Blackmoor whenever you want,” he tells her. “Holidays. Weekends. It's a short flight, really.”

“I know,” she says, but sounds awfully glum, picking at a thread in the middle of her bedsheets.

“What's the matter?”

“It's just—” She crosses and then quickly uncrosses her arms. “Why can't you come with me? Why can't it just be the three of us again?”

And there it is. Jane’s endgame. He had nearly forgotten that this had been why she had tortured Linda so much, in some twisted attempt to play matchmaker with him and Renee. He wonders what the most considerate way to handle this conversation is.

“Jane,” he says carefully, coming to sit on the edge of the bed. “Your mum and I are still friends, but we're not going to ever be more than that again.” Honestly, Hugh’s hesitant to even call her a friend. Fact of the matter is, that divorce was practically a clean break, a complete severance out of each other’s lives, and he feels better for it. Not that that little detail would probably appease Jane right now, so. “But just because we aren't a family that lives in the same house anymore doesn't change how much we care about you.”

He reaches out to stroke her hair, thumb over her bangs, try his best to soothe her.

“But how can you be sure?” she persists. 

He tries to remember being this young, so young that love seemed unfailingly simple. That two people loving each other should be all that mattered. Hugh hasn't loved Renee in a long time, but even if he did, it wouldn't change anything. Very little, he's been finding out, does love actually manage to change.

“We're sure,” he says. “Sometimes it takes a little bit of time to figure out that you're not meant to be together.”

“But you were together. For so long. And you were happy.”

“That’s true,” he tells her. “And I don't regret any of it, all because of you. But people grow, and sometimes they just… grow in separate directions.”

He refrains from telling her that she'll understand better when she's older. She hates hearing that. All twelve-year-olds hate hearing that. But he's not sure how else to assure her that she will, one day, get over this, and perhaps another day, she'll no longer care if her parents are together or not, and a completely different day from that, she'll look back and understand exactly why families just don't always work, even if they once did. He touches her knee gently.

“Jane, I promise it'll all make sense eventually,” he says, and there if is, the frosty frown he was completely expecting. “And I promise, I won't get married again until you're ready for it. Until you give me your approval. All right?”

She nods, but she looks like she's about to cry. Hugh hurries to brush his thumb under her cheeks, ready to catch any falling tears, but she keeps it together, eyes dry. She's very brave, Hugh has to give her that. Skulking around lightless passageways, working the ancient forge, handling all this oncoming change so smoothly. She's a very special girl.

“You’ll miss me, won’t you?” Jane demands. “And you can’t forget me.”

“My dear girl,” Hugh says, missing her already, “that would be nigh impossible.”

He hugs her close to his chest when she crawls across the bed toward him. Truth is, he knows that this is as much for his benefit as it is for Jane’s. After everything that’s happened, he needs the chance to decompress, get a grip on himself. He knows that being a father isn’t an occupation you can pick and choose to be a part of whenever is most convenient, but he can hardly believe that staying at Blackmoor is even good for Jane at this point after all the bad memories that’ve grown here. Italy is new; Italy is fresh. And who knows, perhaps Jane will take it upon herself to rehash this very evil plot on whomever Renee is now dating, which Hugh has to admit, is almost amusing enough to make him laugh about the idea. Almost.

\--

The kitchen’s fucked. He can think of no earthly reason why nobody told him, but the kitchen’s a total mess.

Memento of Jane, he supposes. He can't help but wonder if this was one of many signs that she wasn't quite out of that tailspin she so suddenly seemed to snap out of.

He asks his aunt about it, who seems all too used to Jane's antics to bother being in a huff about it.

“She claims it was an experiment in cookie dough,” she says, but she says the last bit extremely doubtfully. “We're working with a local restaurant for the time being.”

“Why didn't anyone tell me?” he asks.

“We all firmly believed you had enough to worry about,” she says in a tone that makes it clear she still thinks she did the right thing and isn't going to change her mind. “Did you really want to add out-of-order kitchen to the list at the time?”

Her lips are pursed tightly together. He sighs. “No, I suppose not.” He pushes his hands into his pockets. “Do we at least have someone adequate working on repairing it?”

“Not as of yet. We all have had… other priorities,” Mrs. Drake says delicately. “Perhaps you can take point on that particular task now that you’re here.”

Hugh agrees to the idea. He takes some much-needed time off from work to get a handle on all of this, whether it be helping Jane prepare herself for the move or getting to work finding decent help for the kitchen or starting to dig into every bit of Penvellyn history he can now get his hands on. His office tells him to enjoy his time on holiday, as if he’ll be at home on a lawn chair watching panel shows all day, when in actuality, his time at Blackmoor feels more like work than anything else.

The only silver lining is that Nancy extends her stay in an effort to help him out with all the tasks suddenly on his plate, not to mention that she’s determined to put every clue she discovered or key she unearthed back to its rightful place before she leaves. Hugh finds her one morning prying open the massive columns in the great hall to rearrange giant pipes inside them, and then later on in the afternoon, sliding out of a hole in the wall underneath a portrait.

“Where on earth did you come from?” he asks, flabbergasted, as she pushes the wall back into place. “Is that—was that a slide I saw?”

She pushes a windswept lock of hair behind her ear. “I had to put a key back into place. There’s a target in there, and when I hit it, that’s when I got the key to the Saturn column. Your father was actually the one who told me about it!”

Hugh’s confusion only grows. “My father told—pardon?”

“Through his computer in the library. If you do the scavenger hunt he has on it, he tells you where to find the slide.” She smiles, most likely amused by his complete befuddlement. His father prepared a scavenger hunt? There are slides hidden in the walls of Blackmoor? How is it that his own home still manages to surprise him so much?

He scratches his temple. “I suppose next you’ll tell me that one of my ancestors installed a carousel in the basement.”

“Not that I’ve found,” Nancy says, smiling. “But I can show you the slide, if you want?”

“I’d love that,” Hugh says. As overwhelmed as he is by all this, he can’t quite get enough of it either—he’s already been having Ethel tutor him on Penvellyn history every evening—and Nancy currently seems like the on-site expert when it comes to navigating all the passageways. “To be honest, Nancy, I’d like it if you showed me _everything_.”

“Everything?”

“Especially all those passageways you found,” he tells her. “It feels a bit infuriating, having been here so long and never knowing. Never having been told about all these things.”

“You were just the wrong generation,” Nancy tells him, sounding apologetic. “But of course I can show you.”

The first passageway is off the East Hall, one Jane gave Nancy the key to, and Hugh pretends not to be disturbed that his daughter is better versed in the bowels of this house than he is. He can't remember if this was the passageway he found as a child or not. All he remembers are his father's well-meaning words to stay away from the passageways for his own safety, which at the time had seemed like care for his son, not a desperate attempt to keep him blind to the family treasure. Hugh tries not to be annoyed, but still is.

“There aren't any lights, I suppose?” Hugh asks as Nancy leads the way in. It's extremely dark, and echoes a little disturbingly, and is remarkably cold. “Centuries of Penvellyns, and no one thought to add lamps?”

Nancy chuckles. “Here,” she says, and then she's pulling a luminous green stone from her pocket that casts a bright, eerie glow around the passageway. “I was using Jane’s glow sticks until I found this.”

“Brilliant,” Hugh says, wishing he weren't so impressed by her. He looks at Nancy’s face in the lime-colored illumination. “Jane let you have one of her glow sticks, did she?”

“Well, she did make me work for them. It was a games-for-goods system.”

“Quite ingenious,” Hugh admits. “And also horribly cunning. And bordering on bribery. Should I be proud of how smart she is or worried?”

Hugh takes Nancy's crooked smile to mean a little bit of both.

“She's definitely very smart,” Nancy admits. She grabs his arm, guiding him. “Come on. This way.”

She walks slowly so he has the chance to take it all in, not stumble all over the stairs that appear around corners. The passageway seems unendingly deep, going further and further into the house, and he keeps one hand firm on the cool stone wall to orient himself as they walk. Nancy doesn't have the same cautious awe in her step; she's clearly been down here plenty, getting accustomed to the layout. She even shows him one door that is holding gallons of well water behind it, and at his awe, she claims responsibility for filling it with water again. She plays it off—“it was nothing, really”—like it isn’t the only reason Hugh’s aunt has been feeling an ounce of happiness in the last few years.

He nearly trips over a last step he didn't see coming. Nancy's hand slips from his forearm, reaching for his wrist to steady him, and then she's grabbing his palm for support, squeezing.

“Careful,” she says. “It's a bit slippery down here.”

But suddenly it's hard to think about watching his step at all, because Nancy's hand is firm and soft in his, and—and surely this is all some desperate want for contact, a cry for a sympathetic person to connect with, something his body is needy for to ease the pain of unraveling his young marriage so fast. Anything else would be a foolish thought to dwell on.

“And you were never scared down here?” he asks her. He can't imagine her not being so, even his own heart high in his throat even though he knows perfectly well that beasts aren't lurking around the corners, but she just chuckles and pulls him in further.

“I still don't believe in ancient curses, if that's what you're getting at.”

“I wasn't, but that's good to know,” he says, and then immediately wishes he hasn't, because now he can't help but compare her to Linda, and it's not a comparison that particularly favors his wife, seeing as Nancy comes out looking much more rational and reasonable. “It was more of a comment on your general courage. Or, well. Perhaps a compliment.”

The stone in her hand illuminates her shrugging shoulders. “Let's just say that I'm pretty used to dark secret passageways by now.”

“God, you're amazing,” he thinks, or possibly says out loud, because then Nancy is looking over her shoulder at him, mouth open, and he remembers that that isn't something typical to say to an eighteen-year-old girl, especially not as a married man.

Separated. Unofficially separated man.

“It's—it's really not that special,” Nancy insists, looking away, and Hugh finds himself wishing the lighting down here was brighter just to see if she's blushing right now. “Once you solve a few cases, you find them everywhere.”

They get to the moving rooms next. It's disorienting, hearing everything shift beneath his feet, but Nancy seems unfazed, familiar with all her surroundings. He can't help but be astonished at what has lain under his feet for years, unknown, hidden. An entire region of extra space and secrets, a maze of his ancestors’ doing, a new world resting underneath the manor.

“You see, I lived here as a boy,” he says. “I spent so many years here I can hardly wrap my head around the fact that a whole world existed in the manor walls that I never knew about.”

Happy years, at that. He remembers skidding around on his socks on the slick floor between the pillars, playing hide and seek in the conservatory, being scolded by his parents whenever he bugged Loulou for too long. He wonders if Jane has the same fond memories of Blackmoor, or if for her, it's all a blur of cold walls and a broken family.

“Was Jane’s room yours back then?”

“No, actually. I was in your room, coincidentally. I very much remember loving the blue.”

“And the telescope?”

“Oh, I couldn't be bothered,” Hugh says, and that pulls a chuckle out of Nancy, one that sounds totally genuine. “I'm afraid I never cared much for astronomy. You?”

“I have to say, I think it's growing on me a bit.”

Has the house grown on her too? Has England? Has he? Asking any of those questions doesn't feel very wise.

It's a short, dark walk to the alchemy lab after they make it through the moving rooms, ones that are far more menacing than they originally seem. Hugh has half a mind to rebuild the entire contraption and tear out those gridded floors marked as the devil’s pit stops on the map Nancy repeatedly checks, chest just about frozen at the idea of Jane stumbling around here herself.

He forgets about his indignation once Nancy pushes open the alchemy door. It's unexpectedly warm in there, and not in temperature thanks to that bubbling forge, but also in atmosphere. The place is a nearly untouched, dusty treasure, peppered with notes and letters from generations before. Each page that's too worn and faded to be read feels like a story that's been ripped away from him, and he's desperate to know it all, to tangle himself into his roots. He nearly understands where his aunt comes from then, her unwavering Penvellyn pride. Down there, surrounded by dark brick and the whistling of a centuries-old forge, he feels it too.

“Unbelievable,” he murmurs to the old pages of a book almost too weathered to read. He rubs his thumb gently down the spine. “All of this is just… unbelievable.”

“I know. I've never seen anything like this before,” Nancy says.

She shows him the key when he's done exploring. He asks her where she got it; she tells him she made it. Made it herself, from a chunk of metal resting in this medieval forge that she managed to make fully functional all on her own.

“Part of it was controlled by magnets,” she tries to explain to him. “I had to activate the gargoyle heads in time to make it work.”

“What?” he says, mystified.

“Let's just say it was a multi-tiered process,” she says. She brandishes the key. “Do you want to see the meteor?”

A rush of excitement he wasn't expecting sprints through him. He nods, heart rate high as she opens the lock and reveals the mighty rock, the rock that gave his ancestors this land and this house and everything they have to be proud of, and realizes with a funny feeling in his chest that he's glad she's here with him in this moment. To do it alone seems overwhelming, and yet he knows that many of his far-off relatives did just so. Navigated the moving rooms. Made it through the alchemy puzzles. Found and looked at the very same meteor he's looking at now.

“Nancy,” he says, doing what feels right and reaching for her hand, holding it tightly. “Thank you.”

He finds that he’s never meant the words more than he does right at this instant. To think that he would’ve stayed in the dark about all of this if he had never agreed to fly Nancy out here, that he would’ve remained blind to the treasure trove of history and secrets beneath his feet in his own house. Amazing how it took a stranger to open up all these doors for him, although Hugh would hardly refer to Nancy as a stranger by now.

What he would refer to as, he’s not sure he should let himself delve into.

\--

“There you are!” Mrs. Drake says once they reemerge from the passageway. She takes a look at the glowing rock in Nancy's hand and tuts. “My heavens, is everyone suddenly obsessed with the manor’s secret rooms?”

“I was just showing him the alchemy lab, Mrs. Drake,” Nancy explains.

“Yes, well,” she says, waving a dismissive hand. “Is there not enough going on upstairs for you? Mr. Mookerjee called again. That's the second time today. He's starting to get a little irksome, I must say.”

“Leave more of his belongings behind, did he?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Mrs. Drake huffs. “He isn't interested in talking to me at all. He always asks to speak to Nancy.”

Hugh’s eyebrows pull together at that. Why does he keep asking to speak to Nancy? Does he fancy her? Did they somehow work together to unmask Jane? Did they form a bond in that musty old library?

Possibly not, because when he looks over at Nancy to see her reaction, she's rolling her eyes. “He's insatiable,” she mutters. “I'll tell him to stop calling.”

“I'll do it,” Hugh says briskly. “He shouldn't be bothering you.”

Both Nancy and his aunt fix him with an odd look. Maybe that was an out-of-bounds thing to say to a woman like Nancy, who is undoubtedly perfectly competent when it comes to shooing away bothers. Truth is, he's not entirely sure what's appropriate for him to say anymore or not—everything he says, he now over-scrutinizes through the eyes of someone who… perhaps has more affection than altogether normal for Nancy, and that's changed his perception of their conversations entirely.

“Right,” Hugh says loudly under the scrutiny of his aunt’s and Nancy’s eyes. He pushes his sleeve back to check his wristwatch. “Is that the time? Goodness, we were down there for a while. I must be off.”

He feels Nancy’s eyes on his back the entire time he hastens down the hall.

\--

Renee is more than willing to have Jane with her for a few months to let her decompress and spend some time away from the manor. She doesn't even seem surprised when Hugh calls and tells her that Jane's been having trouble adjusting—a wording he spent a good ten minutes deciding on after figuring out how to describe exactly what Jane has recently gone through—and tells him that although it'll be difficult, she's happy to make room in her schedule to be an attentive mother to Jane.

Renee always was a good mother, after all. She didn't excel so much as a wife at one point in their marriage, but she certainly never failed to make Jane happy.

“She's going to love it here,” Renee had said when Hugh had first asked her about the possibility of Jane coming to Rome. “She must be terribly lonely in that big house. She'll have plenty of people to talk to here.”

Her accent had changed just a smidge. Renee had that habit, the insufferable one of picking up nuances of a local dialect and integrating them into her speech. It never failed to annoy Hugh.

He wanted to tell her that she was wrong, and that Jane wasn't lonely, and perfectly content here, but he couldn't refute it. Of course she was lonely. Everyone at Blackmoor was lonely. The place was meant to be full of life and relatives and energy, and it was like none of its inhabitants got the message the last few decades. Jane's box full of games, the one she pushed on every stranger so much as passing by her room, made that clear.

And now she's here, saying a tearful goodbye to everybody in the hall. Even Hugh’s aunt came to see Jane off. All of it is emotional in an exhaustingly draining way. It’s like sending her off to university, except that she’s only twelve, and she’s going to Rome.

Jane, to everyone's surprise, hurtles herself into Nancy’s arms for a tight hug before she leaves. Her eyes are wet when she pulls back, and she does a poor job of trying to be discreet when she turns to the side and thumbs away any wetness on her cheeks. From what Nancy told Hugh about her time at Blackmoor—especially her confrontation with a very exasperated Jane in the laboratory—he didn't think that Jane cared for Nancy outside of using her to further her plot of scaring Linda away, but it seems like she does, small arms needy around Nancy's middle as she embraces her.

“Thanks for playing so many games with me,” she mumbles to her. “I had fun.”

Seeing that, watching the sweet girl he knows and loves hug Nancy goodbye, he very nearly pulls her straight back into his arms and refuses to let her go to Rome.

Except she’s all packed up now, and Renee is expecting her, and Hugh thinks, underneath all his sadness, that this will be good for both of them, so after she’s made her rounds saying goodbye again and again, Hugh puts a hand on her shoulder and leads her out to the car. The entire ride to the airport is filled with badly hidden sniffling from Jane, which only wanes off when Hugh reminds her that her mother’s mentioned getting Jane another guinea pig once she gets settled in Italy. Hugh isn’t sure that Jane should be looking after a living thing right now, all things considered, but the idea of having a pet in her new home excites Jane so much that all her tears fade away.

\--

As if Hugh hasn’t already been put through the emotional wringer these last few days, Nancy colors the bruise by leaving two days after Jane, and there’s nothing logical Hugh can say to prevent her from going. Truth is, he wants her to stay, but he knows it’s an unreasonable request, which is why he won’t dare to utter it out loud. Nancy is needed in so many places, and it would be undeniably selfish of him to keep her from the rest of the world.

She packs up, and she doesn’t even leave anything behind in her room that Hugh can use as an excuse to call her about later. She lets Hugh know that she found a fairly priced flight and the next day she’s already carrying her suitcase down the stairs, and it’s an extraordinarily ugly suitcase at that. It’s almost endearing, all her knowledge and quirks and courage and then the hideous floral luggage that ties it all together.

She comes downstairs early in the morning, Hugh milling around the Great Hall pretending to be straightening portraits to make sure he doesn’t miss her departure, in a truly hideous t-shirt and a low ponytail. It makes him suddenly nostalgic in a way a horse shirt should never make anyone, because it reminds him of all the things about her he doesn’t know, doesn’t get to know, like what her closet looks like, or what pattern her bedsheets at home are, or how long it takes her to get ready in the morning.

It’s absurd, looking at her now and remembering his doubts about her at the beginning when Linda’s mother first told Hugh about Nancy’s impending visit. He had been half-convinced that this was little more than a girl who wanted a plane ticket and a chance to see England, her recommendation falling on flat ears at the time. He had absolutely no faith in her, certain at this point that Linda’s issues were here to stay and frankly, undiagnosable, and that a teenage American girl wasn’t going to make a difference. And then Mrs. Petrov told Hugh that this was hardly a last ditch effort, that Nancy was a professional by all means, and that she had solved mysteries before—in fact, she had assured him, Nancy had just returned from Arizona from a case involving gold treasure, and before that, a rogue orca in the San Juan islands.

He had nearly rolled his eyes at that and all but written Nancy off. Up until she arrived.

And now she’s already leaving, and Hugh feels oddly as though he’s at the peak of his sadness at the prospect of her no longer gracing the halls of his home, and he feels as though he ought to say something to her. Words of gratitude, if nothing else, even though the English language feels like it falls short when it comes to explaining his thanks adequately.

“You will visit again, won’t you?” Hugh asks her at the door. This door has seen far too many goodbyes lately, he thinks but doesn’t say.

“That would be great,” Nancy says. “I’d love to come back and see what addition Jane’s made to keeping the treasure safe.”

Hugh had really been thinking of a much nearer time frame, not years later after Jane’s installed a no-doubt murderous extension to the moving rooms or the alchemy lab. But it would be awfully pushy to demand that Nancy visit sooner, that he’ll find himself missing her very quickly, that the manor will be lacking a great deal of energy when she goes.

“I’d be delighted,” he says with a prim smile. He extends a hand to her, not sure that anything more would be appropriate. “Thank you again for everything.”

He tries to commit her to memory as she shakes his hand goodbye. It’s outrageous, absolutely preposterous that he already cares so much for the woman in front of him, but it feels like a visceral thing more than anything else, a gut-reaction to her presence that he has no control over.

She leaves, it seems, just about as quickly as she came. Hugh watches her car drive off and feeling, inexplicably, like he should’ve said much more to her before she left.

\--

Linda's mother insists that Linda comes home to Illinois rather than go back to New York. She wants physical evidence that England hasn't killed her daughter, which would be silly if it weren't for the circumstances: namely, that Linda had everyone (including herself) thinking that she was metamorphosing into a rabid werewolf.

“I think it'll be good for her,” Mrs. Petrov tells Hugh on the phone after she explains all the arrangements to him. The fact that she's still being so friendly with him makes Hugh feel even worse. “And me, too. We were all so terrified for her, after all, we’re practically dying to see her in one piece!”

“She's doing very well,” Hugh says, unable to think of anything else.

“I'm so glad,” she says. “Thank you for getting everything all sorted out.”

“It wasn't me,” Hugh says. “It was very much Nancy’s doing. I can see why you recommended her.”

“Oh, she’s wonderful, isn’t she?”

Hugh swallows on an inordinately dry throat. “Yes,” he says. “Quite.”

Linda stays at Blackmoor until she feels comfortable stepping out into the public eye again, and for nearly two weeks, nobody but the doctor has access to Linda per her requests. Hugh can’t help but think that they’re past all this by now considering that all of them are probably imagining much more gruesome versions of her behind the curtain than what is really there, but she’s steadfast in her demands that she remain hidden until she’s back to shedding off the excess hair and has gotten color back into her skin.

Hugh supposes he could—and possibly should—sleep on a cot in their bedroom for those days she’s still here, nothing more than a softly moving ghost behind the curtains drawn around the four-poster, if only to offer her support, but he can’t bring himself to muster up the compassion. It feels like Linda’s drained him of a lifetime’s supply of understanding, leaving him with none left to give, so he favors his own will over her needs and sleeps in the bedroom Nancy used during her stay. At first it’s just out of common sense—the bedroom is clean and readily available, after all—but then he grows embarrassingly fond of the faintly residual scent of Nancy’s perfume on the sheets and pillowcases, too much so to dare leaving before the smell evaporates for good.

If his aunt takes notice, she has the sense not to comment on it. Thankfully, she seems mostly occupied by feeding Linda and getting her back onto a healthy, vitamin-rich diet before sending her back to the states thin as a sicklish bird. It’s more care than his aunt has shown for Linda ever before, and Hugh is fairly certain that’s because Linda’s leaving now. She seems as heartbroken about Linda’s departure as Hugh is, very little changing from her daily routine during the last few days of Linda’s stay in Blackmoor aside from the all the food she has sent up to Linda’s bed whenever possible.

When Linda finally does step out from behind the curtain, Hugh feels like he’s looking upon a stranger. Aside from the grim blankness in her expression, she looks the same as she did when they first met, and yet, Hugh feels as if he doesn’t know her, not anymore. He supposes that tends to happen when a married couple is separated by a curtain for months, to say nothing of the behavioral changes they both went through at Jane’s puppeteering hand. She’s still pale, and she’s bundled up like she’s ready to go out into the freezing cold, and she isn’t wearing her wedding ring anymore. Hugh wonders when she took it off.

She leaves two days after that. A car comes to take her to the airport, despite Hugh’s assurances that he’d be happy to give her a ride, and when he watches her drive off, taking his entire marriage with him, he thinks about how it had actually been harder to watch Nancy leave.

\--

The manor seems very quiet after Linda and Jane leave. Without them around, it seems like it’s just Hugh and his guilt to keep each other company, guilt that he feels he’s absorbed off of Jane as well. Hugh spends more time than he cares to admit in the conservatory just to listen to the sound of his aunt cooing at her plants, and the rest of his time in his bedroom focusing on work after he shakes out all the furniture-shielding sheets.

It was supposed to be his and Linda's bedroom. It's just his now, though.

The room Nancy stayed in no longer smells of her scent. Now it only reminds him of what it used to be: his childhood bedroom, and how much time has passed since he actually was a child.

He concentrates mostly on work and being prompt and keeping in touch with Jane. She sends him a postcard a few weeks after he ships her off to her mother, a glossy picture of Venice on one side and forced, badly-spaced cursive on the other. _Dear dad_ , it says. _We miss you loads. The house is nice here, but not nearly as big as Blackmoor. Did you know that in Italy they have this weird snack called puglia? I think it's raw octopus! Blegh! Say hi to Loulou for me._

If he had a fridge, he'd pin her postcard there, but the kitchen’s repairs are going torturously slowly. And when the construction crew is there, they're unthinkingly loud, all their tools and equipment whipping up quite a racket. Hugh shuts himself away in the quiet of his bedroom during the day to tune them out, to say nothing of Loulou’s incessant squawking, another side effect of the repairs being so noisy. 

He leaves Jane's card on the edge of his desk, something to remind himself of her whenever he sits here. More and more, he's wondering if he made a wise decision to send her off to her mother, but then again, he knows that Renee must be enjoying this time with Jane, and that Jane must be equally enjoying it, and that should be enough to please Hugh.

He just wishes he weren't so astonishingly lonely.

Jane's second postcard, which arrives one week later, is what ends up inspiring him. He grabs letter paper from the library and decides to reach out to Nancy, say hello, check in. After everything she's done for him, she deserves at least a bit of correspondence.

He puts his pen to paper and tries to start writing. At first, the words feel stuck, lodged at the throat of the pen, but then he decides courteous honesty is the best way to go, and decides to stop overthinking something as simple as a letter of thanks to someone who, by all means, he knows more about than the hundreds of colleagues he writes messages to on a daily basis that are no more than professional strangers. Nancy is—well, a friend.

_Nancy,_

_Thank you again for everything you did for us. Please know that you are welcome at Blackmoor whenever you'd like to return. The manor certainly seems much too empty without you here._

Is that too much? It's certainly true, even if he's uncertain if it's appropriate to mention such a thing in a letter. It's fine, he decides, and he keeps writing.

_I have continued to explore the passageways you introduced me to, albeit with more light at my aid. I still have trouble believing that my father purposefully kept this entire world from me._

_Needless to say, I’m grateful you were able to show me what he did not. I still wish, however, that you had visited Blackmoor under happier circumstances. I'm sure that Linda's illness draped a very dreadful cloud over what I assure you is usually a lovely place. I hope you will visit again in the future, and allow me to repay the favor you showed me with the passageways and let me show you around Essex. I know the city well._

He stops writing. That, perhaps, might actually be too much. He taps his pen gently on the desk, considering. It would look horrible to scribble all that out. All that wasted ink. He's thinking too hard about this anyway, it's just a friendly invitation. He means no harm by it.

_My deepest gratitude is extended to you once more._

What next? Yours? Love? Sincerely? Regards? All seem treacherously too far over one side of the fence, either too saccharine or too formal. Best might be his best bet. _Best_ is perfect.

_Best,_

_Hugh Penvellyn_

He stuffs it into an envelope before he can convince himself otherwise after he signs his name. He sends it off to the US and tries not to think about when it'll be received and read.

\--

Linda wants a divorce. It isn't much of a surprise, considering where they left off with things before she left, not to mention that she hasn't reached out to Hugh once since going to America to stay with her mother. A part of Hugh is still needlessly shocked by the suggestion, possibly not because he wanted things to work out with Linda, but because he wanted things to work out with his marriage.

His second marriage. His second failed marriage. If he was a pragmatic man, he'd pick up on the pattern and never marry again.

Even so, he knew where they were headed. He already stopped wearing his ring weeks ago. It's been sitting on a dresser in his room collecting dust ever since Linda moved out.

An American number calls him at work a few days later.

“Hugh Penvellyn,” he says.

“Ah, Mr. Penvellyn,” replies an unfamiliar but friendly voice. A man, American accent, deep tone. “I was hoping I'd catch you before you left work. The time difference never makes it easy.” There's a sound, like papers are being shuffled around on the other end of the line. “My name is Carson Drew. I'm a lawyer.”

Drew. Carson Drew the lawyer. Recognition slaps him. “Nancy’s father?” Hugh asks.

“Yes, exactly. I believe you met my daughter recently while she was in England visiting your wife.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. I—” _Just recently sent off a letter to her in the post._ “I remember. How is she?”

“Wonderful. She's in Paris now, if you can believe that.”

“Is she?”

“Watching her drive off to the airport to go solve a mystery is becoming more and more of a regular occurrence for me,” Carson says wistfully. _I miss your daughter terribly, more than I ought to,_ Hugh thinks but doesn't let himself say. “Anyway. I'm calling on your wife’s behalf.” His tone softens. “I'm sorry to hear that your marriage didn't work out.”

“Right, yes, well.” Hugh sighs. The words he knows he should say just aren't coming to him. “I'm sorry as well.”

“I don't typically take on family law cases,” Carson says. “But the Petrovs have been friends with us for a while and asked if I could help, so I figured I would make an exception.”

“I presume you'll be representing Linda in the divorce, then.”

“She was hoping you could do this as easily as possible. She was wondering if you'd be willing to share me as a lawyer to smooth things along.”

“Is she really?”

“Yes, really. I understand if you'd feel more comfortable with your own lawyer, but—”

“No, of course,” Hugh breaks in. “I just… hadn't expected that.” _That reasonableness._ A part of him had completely assumed that Linda would want to milk him dry in the separation, which she very well would've had legal right to considering everything she had undergone at Blackmoor, and her nasty disposition as of late certainly aided the idea. Perhaps she really was improving. Becoming her usual self once more. Returning to the kind-hearted woman Hugh had fallen in love with before everything had gone down the drain so unfathomably quickly.

“I can assure you, my interest would lie entirely in making sure both parties get equal treatment,” Carson continues. “You'd both be my clients, and I'd seek to satisfy you both.”

“Of course,” Hugh murmurs. “I'd be more than happy to share a lawyer.”

“You would have to fly to River Heights a few times to sign some paperwork, I'm afraid. I know that your schedule is fairly—”

“I'll make time,” Hugh assures him. He needs a break from Blackmoor anyway. And there's a chance, however slim, that Nancy will be there, and perhaps he could—thank her again. Let her know how glad he is that he got to acquaint himself with her in England. “Just send me the dates and I'll find something that works.”

“Excellent. I'll shoot you some options.”

Hugh looks at his calendar after the call is over. Work has him busy, as usual. Ever since he's been working overtime to distract himself from his dysfunctional family situation, his boss has assumed that he's permanently capable of handling a wider workload, ladling more paperwork and travel and projects on him than ever before. But he’ll clear his schedule for this.

He tells himself it’s for Linda’s sake, that the least he can do for her is make this divorce as quick and smooth as possible. If he has ulterior motives—well, he won’t be admitting them out loud.

\--

_Hugh,_

_I'm not home right now, but my dad told me you sent a letter. I've been in Paris this last week on another case, but he told me that you'll be coming to Illinois soon. I’m hoping I'll be home by then. I'd love to show you around River Heights!_

_Nancy_

\--

He flies in to Chicago on a Sunday, leaving his aunt to watch the manor in his absence. The plane ride is different than most. He's used to flying, both for work and for pleasure, but this trip seems to fall somewhere in between, touching on both sides just enough to make preparation impossible.

He's excited to see how Linda's doing, because her mood seems to have taken a pleasant turn for the better. But he is, as much as he wishes he wasn't, much _more_ excited to see Nancy again.

A cab drops him off at the Drew Law Offices early in the morning, early enough that the streets are still pretty quiet, a very American small-town charm twittering through the air, nothing like the dark moors he's used to. The bell jingles overhead as he steps into the office, at which point an incredibly disinterested front-desk employee checks him in, and then Carson Drew comes sauntering out, smile wide and charismatic as he holds his hand out for a shake.

He's exceedingly friendly, leading Hugh to his office and making small talk with him as he pulls all the right folders together. He has the same engaging quality his daughter has, eyes easy to trust, and he once again expresses his deepest sympathies to Hugh that he and Linda didn't work out.

“Best to see it as a fresh start,” he advises, and puts a few papers in front of Hugh.

It weighs very heavily on Hugh as he reads through all the documents that this is his second time going through such a long-suffering process. All the words sound exactly like they did last time. How many more times is he destined to read them? He supposes he should take some solace in the fact that Linda doesn't seem to be interested in stripping him dry or owning part of Blackmoor. As a matter of fact, she doesn't seem to want anything from Hugh except to be rid of him, and disturbingly, that nearly hurts just as much.

“Have you spoken to Linda recently?” Hugh asks Carson.

“I have, yes.”

“How is she doing?”

Carson hesitates for a moment, possibly looking for the right words to adequately answer him. “Better, I’d say. Better and better every day. It's been good for her to be around family.”

He wonders, inanely, if Linda's already started dating again, if her mother has perhaps already tried to set her up with new people to try and cheer her up about her imminent divorce. Linda's ex-boyfriend lives around here, Hugh can remember her telling him that. He wonders if she's contacted him, seen him since she moved back. The thought elicits a weird prickle out of him, but nothing more. He's not jealous. He's not upset. He's just… still trying to wrap his head around the fact that everything seems to have turned around so quickly, that a few months ago, Linda was his wife, and now he's considering the probability of her being back together with her ex the homespun accountant.

“How about you?” Carson asks.

“Oh.” Hugh lifts one hand in a useless fluttering gesture as if to wave away the question, caught off guard by it. “I've been fine. House feels a bit quiet again, though, I suppose.” The pen he’s trying to date a form with is fading. He presses down and twists it around to no avail, doing his best not to wrap a metaphor around the pen’s diminishing ink to tie back to his own situation. “Do you have another pen, by any chance?”

“Sure,” Carson says, handing him another. There's a silence in which Hugh tries again to write the date on a line on the bottom, and then Carson is leaning closer across the desk, chair squeaking. “If you don't have any other plans, would you like to come over for dinner tonight? A traditional American meal and all that.”

Hugh looks up from the papers. Just like his intentions, Carson's expression is easy to read. A pity invitation. Hugh is being invited for dinner because he's giving off the air of a sad, dejected divorcee with nothing to see or do. He's not sure if this is standard for American lawyers, but Carson _did_ mention that family law wasn't his specialty, so perhaps he's only being nice to a client in an unfortunate situation. Hugh puts the pen down.

“That sounds lovely, but I wouldn't dare to impose,” he says.

“Nonsense. No imposition. Please, we'd love to have you.”

_We._

“All right,” Hugh agrees. “I'd be happy to, of course.”

\--

The Drew house is large. Not nearly as imposing as Blackmoor, but still superior to all of its neighbors. It takes control of the area much like how Nancy completely owns a room once she walks into it.

It's just as impressive on the inside, if not slightly empty. The place, for as beautifully as it is decorated, seems very sparsely inhabited; all the trinkets and mess and collection of items that tends to happen in a well-lived home are gone, and Hugh suspects it has less to do with their meticulous caretaker and more with the Drews’ propensity of hardly being home.

The caretaker is the one to greet him by the door, tiny apron fastened around her waist as she beckons him in. She's very sweet, overly warm in that patently American way, and offers him cool beverages the moment he steps inside and she hangs his jacket up by the door.

“We're having mashed potatoes and a big roast for dinner,” she tells him. “Carson originally suggested I make something British, but I told him that it didn't much make sense to try and serve English food to an Englishman!”

There's noise coming out of the other room, the dining room. It's someone gently talking, and Hugh instantly recognizes the voice.

He sees Nancy as he turns the corner. She's setting utensils on the table, speaking with her father as she arranges the cutlery, and Hugh wonders how she possibly got more stunning than what his mind’s eye’s portrait of her supplied him with after she went back home. Her hair’s a tiny bit shorter as well. Did she cut it in Paris?

“Mr. Penvellyn!” she exclaims when she notices him.

“Please, it's still Hugh,” he says. “No formalities needed.” He wonders if he imagines the pink spreading on cheeks. “It's lovely to see you again. How was Paris?”

“Eventful,” she says. “And beautiful, of course. I saw so much.”

“Paris is wonderful,” he agrees. The words sound ridiculous leaving his mouth, banal at best, or perhaps Nancy’s presence is causing him to overthink. “I've had the pleasure of traveling there many times and it never fails to take my breath away.”

“It was amazing, of course. Even if I didn't get the chance to take in too much scenery.”

“Why ever not?”

Nancy casts her father a sheepish glance. Carson's the one to speak up next, meeting his daughter’s eyes with a heavy-handed stare as he sets a plate down.

“Nancy’s usually too busy throwing herself headfirst into dangerous situations,” he says, sounding caught between amused and deeply disapproving. “She always gives her cases her all.”

“I wish I could be more of a tourist,” Nancy admits. “There just doesn't seem to be the time.”

“I'm sure your adventures were just as exciting if not more so than the Eiffel Tower,” Hugh says.

“Oh, don't say that!” Carson cuts in, groaning. “I'm desperate to have her consider switching careers. I hear that the world of historical researching is a fascinating—”

“Dad,” Nancy says sharply. “Please?”

“All right, all right.” He quickly squeezes her shoulders as he slides by her on his way back to the kitchen, stopping to clap a hand on Hugh’s arm. “Can I interest you in a vintage?”

“Absolutely.”

He heads off into the kitchen to go fetch it, returning with a dark bottle and wine glasses held in between his fingers, followed by the food—a massive tray of cooked meat and an equally large bowl of mashed potatoes. It perhaps even makes the food at the Boar’s Head seem paltry in comparison.

Dinner is a pleasant, lively affair. The Drews’ housekeeper is a charming woman and Carson is just as charismatic, and between him and Nancy, there are enough tales to fill book upon book. The conversation flows freely from amusing anecdotes Carson has encountered at work to recipes Hannah promises Hugh she'll give him to take along to their cook (once the kitchen is finally fixed, that is) to Togo the family dog to Hugh's life over in England, and not once does Hugh feel like a twice-divorced, aging man. 

Then dessert comes—Hannah’s signature apple pie—and Carson offers him a beautifully aged bourbon to pair with it, and it’s all so warm and pleasant and delightful that Blackmoor suddenly seems like a cold, distant thing, a shadowy house only suitable for those who feel like wallowing in their post-marriage depression and not talking with family. Even the kitchen is all burnt up there, and here it’s a bright room full of excellent smells of freshly cooked meals. 

He looks over at Nancy, sitting across the table from him, and aches to reach over and hold her hand. He doesn’t, though, all too aware of all the company around them, and instead settles for a subtle, easy-to-perceive-as-an-accident brush of his shoe against her ankle.

“Would you like to go for a walk?” Nancy offers Hugh after the plates have been cleared away. “The center of town isn't far away from here. I'd love to get to show you around a bit.”

“I’d like that very much,” Hugh says.

The weather is perfect for a stroll around the neighborhood. The sun is just starting to set when they leave the house, casting a soft orange glow on the streets that Hugh doesn't think he's ever seen on the moors. There's a definite charm here in the midwestern US, a hominess that feels very easy to slip into. He finds it hard to blame Linda for wanting to come back to this.

Nancy tells him more about Paris as they head out of the cul-de-sac, the heels of her shoes clalking on the sidewalk providing a pleasant soundtrack for their conversation, divulging some of the details she was hesitant to share with her father. He worries about her a lot—too much, according to Nancy—and she always cuts out a good fifty percent of any story she tells him about a recently tackled mystery.

This last one was good, apparently. There were government conspiracies and bombs and stained glass and bugged fabric and threats and German criminals, and altogether, a wild ride, and before that, she was on a historic train with a handful of celebrities. Nancy seems ecstatic while she talks, truly in her element as she recalls crucial moments in the case. She would make an excellent member of law enforcement, Hugh’s sure of it.

They stroll by quaint buildings that Nancy points out as they pass them. River Heights is small, but it's radiating appeal nonetheless, its citizens making full use of their space and skills to turn it into a sweet destination. Nancy leads him to an ice cream shop lining the center of town and they stop there for dessert. It’s been years since Hugh has eaten ice cream, the weather in England usually too dreary to entertain it and his time in warmer countries always much too busy to let himself wander around in the search of street vendors, and eating it here with Nancy makes him feel inexplicably young, almost child-like.

“I'm sorry about your marriage,” Nancy says after a few moments of silence once the ice cream is long gone. “I feel terrible that it didn't work out.”

Hugh sighs. He's heard reiterations of the same sentiment from plenty of people, all offering their useless condolences on yet another mistake he's made.

Then again, perhaps there was a purpose behind it. There's so much he saw, learned, experienced thanks to Linda. And he met Nancy.

“These things happen, unfortunately,” he says. “No reason to feel badly.”

“I do, though.”

“Why?” Hugh asks.

When he looks over at her, Nancy's drawn her bottom lip into her mouth, looking uncharacteristically uncertain. “I'm not sure,” she says. She stops walking, looking up at him, expression pinched like she's in the middle of trying to figure something out that she might not want the answer to. “I just feel like maybe I… didn't help as much as I should have. That maybe I contributed to the trouble.”

“Nancy,” Hugh says. “You're not to blame. Not even slightly.”

Her eyebrows are tilted together, her face unsure, pained, guilty. “Are you sure?”

Of course he's not sure. Things would be undoubtedly different if Nancy had never come to Blackmoor. Linda would still be behind that curtain, and Hugh would still be pretending everything was fine, and maybe somehow all of it would've steered its way to a completely different resolution. Maybe Linda would've stayed. Maybe Hugh would've wanted her to.

He realizes then, in a moment of clarity he wasn't expecting, that if given the option to do it differently, he wouldn't take it. He would choose to meet Nancy. He would choose to have things end up like this, even as messy and frightening and uncomfortable as they are. He would choose to know the truth, to be aware of his child’s misery, to be given the chance to fix everything like he’s been trying.

He acts on instinct, stepping forward and cupping the side of Nancy’s face, cheek warm and soft. It's terrible, being consciously aware of just how inappropriate it is to do something but aching to do it anyway. Nancy's eyes are incredibly wide when he brushes his thumb over her cheekbone, searching Hugh’s for answers, intentions, possibly honesty. Hugh's never felt more see-through in his entire life.

“I don't want you to be sorry,” he tells her, voice lacking its usual casual bravado that diplomatic relations have drilled into him. “I'm not. As boggling as it is, I think all this was meant to happen.”

He may have rendered her speechless. Her hand finds his, the one resting on her cheek, and she grabs his wrist, grip firm but not tugging him away, just—holding on.

“Are you—” she starts, but seems to stop to swallow, process, wrap her head around it all.

“Yes,” Hugh says. “ _Yes_ , if that’s all right.”

He closes those last few inches, high on a fearlessness he hasn't felt in a long time, and kisses her. Instantly, it's an almost out-of-body experience, because surely this can't be his body, surely these can't be his hands on Nancy, surely these aren't his arms that are being gently held. But they are, just as it really is Nancy in his grip, a part of reality that had only ever lived a wispy life in his daydreams before.

Nancy’s lips are warm against his, first slow to move, and Hugh is almost waiting for her to push him gently away and shake her head, but then she slides a fraction closer—she’s leaning up on her tiptoes, Hugh realizes dazedly at one point—and hesitantly kisses him back. A rush of emotion assaults him, and absurdly, he feels high on affection and protectiveness to a point where he’s sure he will never love someone else like this ever again. Logically, he knows that he must’ve felt like this before, with Renee, with Linda, back in the beginning when everything was fresh and wonderful, but now it feels stronger than ever before, almost like a slap to the face, and experience seems to desert him. He’s not sure what to do, suddenly feeling extremely young again, and he slides a hand over Nancy’s cheek to keep them touching before he pulls away from the kiss.

For a gut-twisting moment, Nancy doesn’t say anything. She seems to have lost her words.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Hugh says to fill the silence. “Not sure what I was thinking.”

Except he does know what he was thinking, almost too clearly, but it feels like this is the right thing to say. He lets his hand slip off her cheek, missing the warmth immediately. What else is he supposed to add now? _That was awfully inappropriate. I hope you I haven’t made you uncomfortable. Perhaps we should end the evening here._ His throat feels much too dry for speech by now.

“Hugh,” Nancy says, and Hugh realizes that he’s been turning away, slowly backing off. “Probably the same thing I was thinking.”

He swallows. “Pardon?”

“I couldn’t be sure in England—plus, there was Linda, and I didn’t want to… overstep.” She looks pained, almost like she’s holding herself accountable for all of this. Hugh wants to pull her close and assure her that no, no, he’s the only one to blame here, not her, and any moral dilemma she’s wrapped herself in isn’t her burden to shoulder. He would, too, if he weren’t rendered frozen by the realization that Nancy might also—that he isn’t the only one—that after all this time—

Nancy’s phone chirping in the pocket of her jacket brings the reality Hugh’s been completely blocking out back into play. He remembers where he is, what he’s doing, and Nancy seems to go through the same mental journey before ultimately taking a small step back and grabbing her phone, but not before sparing Hugh an apologetic glance. He gently waves her off, letting her turn away to take the call.

He listens in without intending to. The conversation seems to be between Nancy and a friend of her father’s, someone who thought of her for a case or a mystery or some other globe-trotting adventure that she would excel at. It amazes him, a girl of her age living life in the fast lane like she is.

“Sorry,” she says once she ends the call, turning back to Hugh, but by then the honesty and emotion that was strung between them earlier has been frayed, replaced by an uncertainty of what to do or say next. Hugh is already worried that he’s done too much, that perhaps he’s acting too much on his heart and not enough on his brain, and decides that he needs to decompress and process what happened this evening in the safety of his hotel room, somewhere quiet where Nancy isn’t to distract him.

“Not a problem,” he says. “But it is getting late. Perhaps I should walk you back to your home before the darkness settles.”

She gives him a tight smile; she also must’ve noticed the change in atmosphere. “All right. Will I see you again tomorrow?”

“I’m sure,” Hugh says. “You won’t believe the amount of paperwork that goes into getting out of a marriage. I suspect I’ll be here for the next… two years, possibly.”

Nancy laughs at the joke. “I don’t think anybody would mind.”

“Back at Blackmoor? Yes, yes, I dare say my aunt would be more than happy to be rid of me for a spell.”

“No,” Nancy cuts in. She sounds startlingly earnest. “I meant here.”

Hugh is lost, completely drowned in her genuine kindness. If he stares at her eyes for too long, he feels he’ll never be able to leave River Heights _at all_ , so he forces himself to look away and clear his throat, then offer his arm to her.

“Shall we start walking back?” he suggests.

\--

Back at the Drew House, Carson tries to invite Hugh into the guest room to stay the night, insists that he doesn’t need to bother with a hotel this late into the evening, and as persuasive as his argument is, only bolstered by Hannah offering to bring Hugh some late-night tea to help him sleep, Hugh is well aware of Nancy’s warm presence beside him and his own arms desperate to hold her, and that alone gives him enough reason to not stay the night. He thanks them all profusely and shakes Carson’s hand, extremely grateful for his hospitality, but assures him that since he already booked the hotel in advance, it would wasteful to not follow through with his reservation.

He’s plagued the entire walk to the hotel with thoughts of Nancy. Of the wonderful evening he had with her. Of how exhilarating it felt to have her in his arms. Of how much he wishes he would’ve stayed in the warmth and comfort of the house. Of how he’s become a complete caricature of himself, no longer the buttoned-up dignitary or respected businessman but rather a lovestruck fool with no ability to control himself. A very strange descent into madness, he thinks, especially considering he’s powerless to stop it.

That, or he’s just purposefully doing very _little_ to stop it.

The next day, after a restless sleep—strange, considering jet lag typically knocks him out after a long day of travel—in a cold and impersonal hotel room, Hugh meets up with Carson at his office again for going over more paperwork. It’s the day he should have been dreading, because Linda is coming in today, but Carson is confident that it will all go over civilly and that his own mediation won’t even be necessary.

“Nervous?” Carson asks him when Hugh takes a seat in one of his office chairs. “Or just… tired?”

“Both, I suppose,” Hugh admits. “I didn’t sleep well. And I’m clueless as to how Linda will react upon seeing me.”

Carson gives him a broad, all-knowing smile that’s strangely comforting. “Really well,” he says, almost like he’s promising him this as fact. “She never would’ve asked me to reach out to you and represent the both of you together if she held any sort of grudge against you. And as for your bad night’s rest...” He hands Hugh a cup of coffee from the gurgling machine hidden behind the printer. “The offer to stay at my home in the guest room still stands. The mattress is definitely better than whatever you’re sleeping on at a hotel, and it was wonderful to have you there for dinner yesterday.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

“Oh, it would be a pleasure. Nancy even asked me to remind you today.”

A fresh bout of nerves washes over Hugh like a hot wave. “Did she?” he asks, desperate to remain casual. Good God, he’s absolutely ridiculous, aflutter with feelings akin to a fresh crush while he’s sitting in the middle of divorce proceedings.

A knock on the door distracts them both. Linda is the one who steps in, even though it takes Hugh a moment to recognize her: her pallor has been replaced by a healthy glow and she’s wearing make-up and she looks to be her normal self again. Being home has clearly been good for her.

Hugh stands up from his chair when she enters, and he hopes for a handshake, but Linda surprises him and opts for a careful hug instead. She smells of the perfume Hugh remembers her wearing when they started dating.

Everything goes very smoothly, about as smoothly as Hugh ever could’ve hoped. They even joke about her being able to keep the monogrammed towels with the golden _P_ s on them from the wedding gifts because they’ll work as well for Petrov as they did for Penvellyn, and that gets a laugh out of both of them. Linda’s warmed considerably since the last time they saw each other when she was practically an ice sculpture, not offering him anything past the barest of niceties, and now she’s smiling and chuckling and even asking about how Jane is doing.

He wishes he would feel something for her again, if only because that would be easier. Almost simple. But he doesn’t.

Carson brings him to a bar for a beer afterwards, his treat, to numb any sting that might’ve come to the surface after that particular encounter with his now ex-wife. His second ex-wife.

His thoughts must be easily read on his features, because Carson grabs his shoulder, squeezes, and says, “Consider it a learning experience. Not something to regret.” He has the kind of strong, sure voice that makes it easy to believe everything he’s saying.

It occurs to Hugh as he watches Carson gesticulate to the bartender for more beers that the man has been unnecessarily giving to him. From last night’s dinner to today’s free alcohol, he’s been extremely nice, and Hugh wonders what he’s done to deserve it, or even the slim possibility that this is all just midwestern friendliness.

“You’ve been exceedingly kind to me,” Hugh tells him, as baffled as he is touched. He’s had coworkers he’s known for years and sat with during company lunches that still haven’t congratulated him on his wedding yet, and still, a man he just met is bestowing him more thoughtfulness than most of his friends back in England. “For the life of me, I can’t quite figure out why.”

Carson squeezes his shoulder again. “Nancy speaks very highly of you,” he says. “And I trust my daughter’s intuition about people.”

At Nancy’s name, Hugh feels his ears go hot. Perhaps the beer was a bad idea. The last thing he needs is to lose his inhibitions around a man who is not only his lawyer but also father to the girl he kissed one night prior. “What has she told you?”

“That you’re a good guy who got stuck in an unfortunate situation. And, well, she and I both like to help out when we can.”

Their altruism is astounding. A part of Hugh is still waiting for all of this to be a massive joke—after all, who would be so benevolent as to extend a supportive hand to him through his divorce that goes as far as offering up meals and beds and a listening ear when they have no actual obligation to Hugh at all?

“Listen,” Carson says. “Let me show you around town a bit, and then you can come to the house again tonight. Hannah’ll cook up another fantastic meal. And I’m sure Nancy will be happy to see you again before you leave.”

Before he leaves. Why is he leaving again? Why do he and Nancy keep leaving each other? This is absurd.

“Of course I can’t decline such an invitation,” Hugh says.

\--

Dinner that night goes very similarly to how it did the day before, full of wonderful food and lively discussions, with only one glaring difference: Hugh is painfully aware of what happened with Nancy yesterday, and it’s impossible for him to think of anything but when he so much as catches a glimpse of her.

He imagines the same thoughts are running through her brain as well; she keeps catching his eye and looking quickly away once more. He can only hope that the memories he’s bringing back for her are as butterfly-inducing as what she’s doing to him, rather than dredging up remorse and disgust and general humiliation. He’s nearly embarrassed when he brings his bags in after picking them up from his hotel, not sure it’s appropriate for him to spend the night, but then he remembers Carson’s words to him about how much Nancy had asked about him, how she wanted him here for dinner.

Once, beneath the table, Nancy’s ankle bumps into his. When he looks up at her, there’s a pinkness to her visage that is incredibly endearing. He’s like a silly boy afterwards, nearly too choked up with affection to finish dinner.

“How was your meeting with Linda today?” Nancy asks while she helps him clear the table after dessert—Hannah’s made-from-scratch peach cobbler. “Did it go well?”

“Even better than I anticipated,” Hugh admits. “My absence seems to have done wonders for Linda. We apparently flourish much more when not in each other’s company.”

Nancy seems unsure as to how to respond to such a statement. She gives him a crooked smile. “I… am happy for you?”

“Ha! Thank you very much,” he says. “Although it does make a rather worrying implication about my ability to pick wives. Perhaps the next woman I find whom I love I should just leave alone?”

It’s meant to be a joke, but it rings a little dryly by the time it finishes leaving Hugh’s mouth, if not prophetic. He already knows that it probably isn’t wise for him to pursue Nancy, if only because of judgement that would befall them both because of their differing ages and her hand in his divorce, to say nothing of their equally demanding schedules. They both travel for work almost constantly, and trying to overlap time together would be a nightmare. And then there’s his guilt, which somehow manages to overshadow even his fiercest feelings for her, which burn as hot as lightning.

Nancy’s looking at him almost sadly. Hugh yearns to reach out and touch her, hand twitching by his side to do so, and very nearly does, but then he thinks better of it. What if Carson were to walk in while he was stroking his hand through Nancy’s hair? The thought alone is mortifying.

“Hugh!” Carson’s voice calls out from the living room, and then he appears in the doorway, making his fears seem all the more founded. “How about some card games before it gets too late?”

“That’s a tempting offer, Carson,” Hugh says. “But I really must spend some time on work. I’m slowly being swamped with emails after all this time away.”

“Understandable,” Carson says. “Just one round, perhaps?”

It’s a crossroads for Hugh, because on one hand, he wants desperately to make use of the time he has left with the Drews and River Heights and this splendid world they’ve built for themselves here, especially since his flight back is already tomorrow afternoon, but he’s also painstakingly aware of his own limits, and that he’ll be testing them tremendously if he spends the evening with the family. It’ll be less of a card game and more of a battle of wills, a constant looped reminder to not reach for Nancy, slide a hand over her knee.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to pass,” he says. In his peripherals, he can see Nancy watching him. “Thank you regardless.”

\--

The guest room is lovely. Not as rigid as the hotel’s by any means, but rather lovingly furnished and kept well-cleaned for visitors. The air inside smells of fresh candles and the mattress is, as promised, much softer than the one he slept on last night, and the environment is perfect for him to settle down and catch up on work. The only thing missing is someone to make it feel not quite so lonely.

Hugh keeps being reminded of how he slept in Nancy’s previously inhabited bed while back at Blackmoor, how he drank in her scent and longed for her to be there as well, not just a figment of his imagination triggered by his olfactory senses. Even with everything that had been happening at Blackmoor at the time, he had slept remarkably well in that bed, except for the fact that it never failed to remind him of his own solitude. He hadn’t realized until then just how much he missed human contact—having someone to wrap around under the sheets, being cuddled by a soothing hand, listening to the sound of soft, rhythmic breathing by his ear.

He’s struck by the same longing now. It’s intensified by the knowledge that Nancy is only a few rooms away, possibly already asleep in her room, but possibly still awake, perhaps surrounded by lamplight and deep in a book.

Would it be too ill-mannered of him to knock on her door, see if she was awake? Of course it would. It’s like Nancy has made him lose all sense of proper conduct.

He’s almost sure after shaking his head of that particular idea that the knock on his door he hears a moment later is a figment of his imagination. He’s prepared to carry on with what he was doing when a second knock sounds, this one unmistakable, and he immediately gets to his feet. He checks the time on the clock on the wall; he’s been so busy answering emails and making calls that he hadn’t even realized it was nearly midnight and that the suit he has to yet to take off is slowly wrinkling thanks to his tired slouching.

He hurries to open the door, and standing on the other side is Nancy, hair in a soft braid, bathrobe wrapped around her body. It looks like she showered a little bit ago, face fresh and hair still slightly damp.

“Hello,” Hugh says, his voice little more than a whisper. The hallway is dark behind her, no sign of Carson or Hannah still pottering about awake to be seen.

“Hi. Are you busy?”

“It’s midnight.”

“Yes, and you’re in a suit,” Nancy points out. “Having a business meeting in there?”

He smiles. “Not quite. I lost track of time.” He steps aside from the doorway to welcome her inside. “Please.”

Her footsteps are soft on the carpet as she comes into the guest room, her eyes raking over the mess Hugh has made on the sheets, his briefcase open and papers sprawling out of it. He’s typically much neater than this, but his mind has been so scattered, so wrapped up in thoughts outside of work, that it’s been showing in his concentration.

“I was hoping we could finish the conversation we had the other day,” Nancy says as Hugh shuts the door behind them. “I’ve been getting the feeling that you’ve been avoiding it, but I… think it’d be good if we addressed it before you leave.”

He shakes his head, suddenly confronted with his own cowardice. It’s amazing how much Nancy has been reminding him of his own shortcomings on the bravery front ever since meeting her. “I have been avoiding it, but I certainly didn’t mean to, Nancy.” He exhales through his nostrils, wistful. Looking at her is abruptly too much for him to handle. “I’m just aware of how the conversation will inevitably end. And I have yet to think of a favorable option.”

“I know,” Nancy says after a bout of silence. “There isn’t really a happy ending to this, is there?”

“I suppose only if we end it at exactly the right time.”

Figuring out when that time would be is the hard part, admittedly. A part of Hugh is already resigned to the idea of not starting anything at all and ending it when it’s still nothing more than a romantic encounter and the dizzying sensations of starting to having feelings for someone wonderful. That’s always the best part, after all, so it seems productive to not pursue anything further.

The only problem is that only just _looking_ at Nancy makes him want to rethink this.

“Come here,” Nancy says, voice firm. She takes a seat on the bed, brushing his papers aside, and pats the spot next to her. When he hesitates, she pats harder. “You look tired.”

At her words, exhaustion seems to creep up on his being. He sits on the edge of the bed as silently requested.

“I am,” he confesses. “Perhaps the new time zone is to blame. Or perhaps the divorce proceedings.”

He knows on some level that he should be thankful. They could’ve dragged this out and taken this to court, after all, and Linda could snatched off with a sizable chunk of his money. Although thinking about that now when the warmth from Nancy’s skin is near enough to feel seems ludicrous. His fatigue, both stupider and braver than he is when perfectly rested, urges him to pull her close to him. He does, sighing, and she tucks her head under his chin, her arm winding around his backside.

“I think I’ll sleep here tonight,” Nancy declares. “If you don’t mind the company. It might help you sleep.”

“Of course I don’t mind.”

She smiles at him. “Good.”

They get ready quietly. There’s a soft hush in the house at nighttime that just feels extraordinarily comfortable, the kind of peace that one could spill all their secrets during, or in Hugh’s case, be courageous enough to share a bed with a beautiful girl who wants to make sure he sleeps well. He brushes his teeth and removes his suit, folding it carefully to avoid unwanted creases, and slips into his sleepwear, and by the time he’s done in the guest bathroom, Nancy has cleaned all the papers off the bed and shed her bathrobe, revealing silken pajamas underneath. Hugh climbs into bed next to her, taking in all the almost domestic details of this glorious evening. He nearly lets himself pretend that this is nothing more than a day in the life of his and Nancy’s relationship, an act of habit, a routine that they’re used to but he couldn't see himself ever taking for granted.

“You’re stunning,” Hugh says to her, sweeping a stray strand of hair off her cheek. From this distance, he spots the blush blooming on her cheek. “I usually consider myself to be a well-composed man, but there is something about you that just… unravels me.”

He’s not sure if he’s doing this right. With Renee, with Linda, it was easy to know what to do. Their relationships were by the book, and flirtations came freely, all part of convention. This thing with Nancy is anything _but_ conventional, and he feels horribly out of his depth.

“So I apologize if I’m coming across a bumbling fool,” Hugh says, and it makes Nancy softly laugh.

“You’re doing all right,” Nancy says.

She leans in—Hugh is still amazed by her sheer daring—and gives him a slow, chaste kiss. It both calms him and makes him ache for more, to have her like this forever, to have the opportunity to explore and discover her.

She slides down the bed, pulling Hugh with her, and rests her cheek on his shoulder. The fabric of her pajama top is unbelievably soft against his arm, and her shampoo smells pleasantly like a garden, and she’s a warm weight pressed against his side. He wants to soak in this moment, take in the sensations, but he’s asleep before he can, lured into slumber by the soothing presence of Nancy at his side.

\--

Hugh wakes up to sunlight streaming in through the blinds, bright on the other side of his eyelids, and a sleeping body still in his arms. It’s the only proof he has that last night wasn’t a complete hallucination cobbled together by his daydreams, and rather blissful proof at that. He blinks a few times, waiting for the mirage to disappear, and when it doesn’t, he runs a hand gingerly through Nancy’s hair, afraid to pop the bubble of whatever luck he’s captured here, and curses himself when Nancy stirs at the sensations, awakening.

“Don’t let me wake you,” Hugh murmurs as Nancy’s eyes open, flicking up to him.

She shakes her head, a smile forming on her lips; it seems she’s slowly being reminded of last night’s events herself as she awakens. Hugh is caught with just how desperately he wants this forever, how this one morning of waking up with her is enough to leave him sure that he never wants to spend another night in a bed without her.

“I don’t mind,” she says. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he says, stroking his hand down her back.

She’s the first to lean in, or perhaps Hugh is, he can hardly tell, but then their good morning kiss delves into something deeper, Nancy’s mouth opening easily under his. He clutches the soft fabric at her back, intoxicated by the feeling of her being so close, and marvels at the warmth of her small body when she pushes closer to him, kissing him again and again, each time with more meaning, more intent.

He knows, just knows intrinsically, that if he has her like this, he won’t ever be able to live without her. But he knows how unrealistic that is, to expect to have her forever, and it just won’t happen. It’s almost terribly ironic, because it was more than easy to have Renee and Linda, they all but fell into his lap and were as eagerly his as he was theirs, and it was hardly meant to be either time, but now he thinks that this—whatever this is, that he and Nancy have, it isn’t easy, and maybe that means it _is_ meant to be. It’s a sour thought, more bitter than sweet, and he grips her waist almost too tightly in an effort to memorize the feel of it.

“Nancy,” he says when she breaks the kiss, pushing his face into her neck and breathing in her hair. “I worry that I’ll never choose to go back to England if—if we continue.”

He pets her hair back from her face, watching the same sorrow that is most definitely on his face reflected onto hers. “I know,” she says quietly.

He has a flight to catch today. And work to come home to. And a house to look after. And a daughter to check in on. And as much as he wants her there, and as much as he can _picture_ it, Nancy’s not part of his future.

He swallows down on a thick throat. “Perhaps it’s smarter for us to… not delude ourselves.”

“Maybe it is,” she says.”

“Nancy,” he says, even startled himself by just how reverently he says her name. He reaches for her hand, folding it between both of his own. “I care for you. Very much. More than I know by now is wise.” He doesn’t know where he’s going with this, where he possibly _could_ , but it feels important to say it anyway. “If you would even consider—”

He stops. What does he want from her, exactly? Or rather, what is fair to ask of her? She’s so young, with so much energy and potential and depth inside her, and to interrupt the smooth flow of her life with a relationship with a man twice her age who is almost always chasing the globe one way or another in the name of work, to say nothing of his issues with his family—it would be cruel, truly. Cruel and selfish.

“No, I won’t ask,” he tells her, squeezing her hand. It’s unbelievably soft in his. “The last thing I want is to compromise your future, and you deserve…” More than this. More than a divorced man living across the sea. More than Blackmoor, more than he could ever offer. “Better.”

Nancy doesn’t shake her head. It’s obvious that she can’t bring herself to disagree, and that’s all right. Hugh wouldn’t want her to anyway. She has so much in front of her. She has _everything_ in front of her.

“I wouldn’t ask you to entertain a man like me,” he tells her. “But if you’re ever in England—”

“Of course,” Nancy says. “I would like that a lot.”

He touches her cheek, briefly, and offers her a smile. She is unendingly lovely, and if anything, she’s given him the hope that he can still fall in love again just as hard as the first time, or the second, or the third, and perhaps the next time he does, it will be right in all the ways, whether it be the time or the place or the person.


End file.
